More Seats to North and South East Asia from Changi

The Northern-Winter 2011/121 season, which started this week, sees an additional 280 weekly flights and 30,000 weekly one-way seats being made available at Singapore Changi Airport to Southeast and Northeast Asia, cementing Changi?s position as a major gateway to the region.

In Southeast Asia, Jetstar Asia, Singapore Airlines, Thai Airways and Tiger Airways will operate 50 additional weekly flights to and from Bangkok while AirAsia and Jetstar Asia will operate 42 additional weekly flights to and from Kuala Lumpur. In total, Changi will be connected to and from Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur by 364 and 607 weekly flights respectively.

Separately, Changi will be connected to all nine of Singapore?s ASEAN neighbours later this month when Lao Airlines commences thrice-weekly services from Vientiane, the capital of Laos.

Changi Airport will also strengthen its connectivity to China with an additional 6,700 weekly one-way seats to Beijing, Changsha, Chongqing, Guangzhou and Shanghai.

SilkAir launched thrice-weekly services to Changsha, a new city link for Changi, from 31 October. Changi is now connected to 25 Chinese cities via more than 650 weekly flights.

Passenger traffic between Singapore and Japan experienced its third consecutive month of growth in September 2011, after the earthquake and tsunami in March this year. With Singapore Airlines having restored an additional daily service to Tokyo Haneda from 30 October, the frequency between Singapore and Tokyo (both Narita and Haneda) returns to pre-earthquake levels with some 150 weekly flights connecting the two cities.

Along with the commencement of Lufthansa?s A380 operations in Singapore this week, Changi?s connectivity to Europe has been boosted by KLM?s additional weekly service to Amsterdam.

 In January 2012, Changi Airport will welcome Transaero?s weekly service to Moscow and Singapore Airlines will increase capacity on its existing Singapore-Frankfurt-New York route with an A380 service.

With the increase in frequencies for the Northern-Winter 2011/12 season, Changi Airport is set to serve more than 6,200 weekly flights by the end of March 2012. This is an increase of about 5%, compared to the over 5,900 weekly flights Changi handled at the end of the Northern-Summer 2011 season.

On the cargo front, there is also additional capacity from Changi Airport to Germany and Europe with the commencement of Lufthansa?s all-cargo freighter operations at Changi and Singapore Airlines Cargo?s new twice-weekly services to Frankfurt. Using the 89-tonne MD11F aircraft, Lufthansa?s all-cargo carrier will complement its existing Aerologic services. Lufthansa will operate twice-weekly services to Frankfurt with stops in Cairo, Dhaka, Mumbai, New Delhi and Sharjah. Singapore Airlines Cargo?s services to Frankfurt will include stops in Bengaluru, Chennai and Sharjah.

As at 1 November 2011, Changi Airport serves 14 all-cargo carriers operating more than 380 weekly scheduled flights, an increase of 17% compared to a year ago.

North American Leisure Travel Edges Ahead of Global Market

North American leisure travel outpaced global travel bookings in September by 1.4%, according to data from Pegasus Solutions.

Overall, the leisure market saw leisure bookings gain momentum worldwide from the +4.2% increase seen in August, evidencing a surge in off-peak travel.

In the midst of the Euro debt crisis, Europe?s leisure reservations actually declined slightly by -0.5% compared to September 2010.

Globally, the ADR for leisure bookings increased by +3% over prior year, with North America jumping +5%, ahead of the +3.8% year-to-date pace. Outside North America, ADR stayed ahead of the prior year by +1.5%.

?The leisure market?s showing in September evidenced a move towards off-peak travel by consumers,? said Mike Kistner, chief executive officer of Pegasus Solutions. ?It?s not a month we usually would expect to see leisure gains, but efforts to make travel dollars go farther by travelling during the traditional ?off-season? made bookings jump, especially in North America. Hoteliers for their part resisted deep discounting following the summer peak season, and as a result drove more revenue as leisure bookings poured in at more moderate, off-peak rates.?

The corporate market continued to grow over prior year, registering a +6.1% increase in global GDS channel bookings; this was slower than August?s uptick of +10.2%, but ahead of July?s +5.8% pace. Rates remained positive, rising by +3.5% globally over 2010. Looking forward, corporate bookings and rates are both expected to continue beating prior year figures through the fourth quarter, with the potential for slower booking growth combined with a rate uptick come January.

The Pegasus View comes from billions of transactions processed monthly by Pegasus Solutions and reflects data drawn from both GDS and ADS transactions, representing the business and leisure markets respectively for approximately 90,000 hotels worldwide.

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