SINGAPORE : Singapore Airlines (SIA) will significantly increase the frequency of its flights to some key markets from March to October 2024, restoring more of its services - including those to Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Melbourne - to pre-pandemic levels.

In a statement on Monday, the national carrier said this move would help it meet the strong demand for air travel to these destinations.

On some routes, SIA will also raise capacity by using larger jets.

On flights to and from Cairns, Australia, it will replace the single-aisle Boeing 737-8 plane, which has 154 seats, with the Airbus A350-900 medium-haul jet, which has 303 seats.

This will be the first time a wide-body plane is deployed on the route in more than two decades, the carrier said.

Meanwhile, the larger Airbus A380 will replace the smaller A350-900 long-haul jet on one of SIA’s daily services to Frankfurt, Germany, marking the return of the airline’s superjumbo to continental Europe.

From March 31, 2024, SIA will also use A350-900 medium-haul planes on flights between Singapore and Male in the Maldives, instead of the smaller Boeing 737-8.

With the increased frequencies, SIA’s services between Singapore and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates will exceed pre-Covid-19 levels, at 11 times weekly, from March 31, 2024.

Other SIA services that will have frequencies reaching or surpassing pre-pandemic levels include flights to and from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, which will go up to four flights daily from Sept 1, 2024. Flights to and from Danang in Vietnam will be raised to 14 times weekly from July 1, 2024.

The frequencies of flights to Ahmedabad in western India, Darwin and Perth in Australia, Copenhagen in Denmark, and Seattle and Houston in the United States will also be restored to pre-Covid-19 levels.

For services between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur - the second-busiest international route worldwide - SIA will crank up its flights from 47 times weekly now to 66 times by August 2024.

A third daily service will be added between Singapore and Beijing from May 2024, taking the frequency of SIA’s flights to the Chinese capital to pre-pandemic levels.

From August 2024, SIA will fly six times daily to Hong Kong, up from four now. The airline will operate A350-900 long-haul jets on the two extra services.

The carrier will also resume direct flights between Singapore and Barcelona, Spain, from June 2, 2024, with a twice-weekly service.

JoAnn Tan, SIA’s senior vice-president for marketing planning, said: “With the release of SIA’s Northern Summer schedules, our customers can plan ahead and start to make their travel plans for 2024.”

Between April and June 2023, SIA and its budget arm Scoot carried 8.4 million passengers, 65.5 per cent higher than a year before.

SIA’s passenger load factor - a measure of the percentage of seats filled - stood at a record 88.1 per cent.

In late July, the SIA Group said its capacity was on track to reach an average of about 90 per cent of pre-Covid-19 levels by March 2024.

Asked by The Straits Times about the effect of the upcoming frequency changes on capacity post-March 2024, SIA said it was unable to provide this information.

The airline posted a record quarterly net profit of $734 million for the first quarter of its financial year that ended on June 30 in the midst of pent-up demand for air travel.

  - ANN