Coronavirus outbreak: Air India, Vistara, Singapore Airlines to reduce flights between India and Singapore

NEW DELHI: With India asking its citizens to avoid non-essential travel to Singapore and screening passengers coming from there due to the coronavirus outbreak, flights connectivity between the two countries is now being slashed.
Air India has a daily on Delhi-Singapore-Delhi and Mumbai-Chennai-Singapore-Chennai-Mumbai sectors. “From Monday, the Delhi flight will operate five days a week and Mumbai four times.So the 14 times weekly is now nine times weekly with five flights being suspended,” said an AI official.
A Vistara spokesperson said: “We are continually reviewing the situation and due to low demand on Singapore route we are making some cancellations which will come into effect next month. Affected customers are being contacted and offered alternatives.”
GoAir is suspending Singapore flights due to slot issue. “GoAir was offered unviable time slots which we operated with an understanding that these slots will be reviewed no sooner we commence our operations into Singapore. However, despite repeated appeals GoAir was not offered any alternate slot. GoAir had no choice but to temporarily suspend its flight operations from Singapore to Kolkata from February 7, 2020, and between Singapore and Bengaluru from 08 February 8. Based on better slot offerings at commercially viable timings, GoAir remains committed to re-launch services to Singapore,” said a GoAir spokesman. IndiGo will announce on Tuesday.
Singapore Airlines (SIA) on Tuesday further increased its flight suspension across network till May-end. The flight suspension announced last Tuesday had reduced SIA’s Mumbai flights (four flights each way suspended in March) and its regional arm SilkAir’s Kochi connections (18 flights each way suspended in March). But the suspensions announced Monday on SIA website shows more Indian destinations, as part of the global cut, getting affected for both SIA and SilkAir this time.
Singapore-Cochin-Singapore will see the maximum cancellations with flights being 22 flights each way being cancelled in March and April. Flights on Singapore-Mumbai-Singapore have been cancelled on eight days in March. Singapore-Kolkata-Singapore and Singapore-Bengaluru-Singapore have been cancelled on three days each in March. Singapore-Chennai-Singapore flights have been cancelled on two days in March, while one flight has been cancelled to and from Hyderabad in the same month.
The SIA website says: “SIA and SilkAir have made additional temporary adjustments to services across our network in response to weak demand due to the Covid-19 outbreak. This will result in a decrease in scheduled capacity from February to end-May 2020. The SIA Group has taken swift action to mitigate the impact of Covid-19. We will continue to monitor the situation, and be nimble and flexible in adjusting our capacity to match the changing demand patterns in the market.”
“SIA and SilkAir apologise for the inconvenience caused. Affected customers will be notified and re-accommodated onto other flights. If you have booked your tickets through a travel agency, please contact your agent for assistance. If you have booked your tickets directly with Singapore Airlines, please contact the SIA reservations team.… As we are expecting large volumes of calls, we seek your patience and understanding that our customer service agents may take longer than usual to respond to you,” it adds.