SINGAPORE: Singapore Airlines and its low-cost carrier Scoot will expand their Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL) network to connect 66 cities in 27 countries in the coming weeks.
“From March 16, 2022, the new VTL service will be gradually added in selected cities in Southeast Asia and India, as well as in Athens,” the airline’s parent company, SIA Group, said on Tuesday (March 15).
It added that more non-VTL flights will also be converted to VTL flights to certain destinations.
SIA Group, reporting its operating results for February, said passenger traffic fell slightly to 44% of pre-COVID-19 levels.
It said that was 2% lower than January, “attributable to the shorter period in February”.
Passenger traffic is expected to be around 57% of pre-COVID-19 levels by April of this year.
The group load factor in February was 39.1%, down 0.9% month-on-month. This figure is up 29.4% from the same period last year.
In the first half of February, VTL ticket sales were still impacted by a 50% reduction in arrival quota.
“On February 16, 2022, Singapore announced that it would remove the 50% cap and gradually increase the daily arrivals VTL quota from 5,000 to 15,000 passengers by March 4, 2022,” the SIA Group said.
The cargo business’s load factor was 69% in February, down 25.6% year-on-year; it added that this was “in line with seasonal fluctuations”.
Cargo capacity increased by 50.4% in February due to the gradual resumption of passenger flights.
But SIA Group said cargo volumes rose only 9.8% as overall air cargo demand slowed during the Lunar New Year holiday period and more belly space was allocated for passenger luggage as passenger load factors improved.
In February, Scoot added Miri to its network, while resuming services on the Gold Coast and Hanoi. Singapore Airlines also resumed flights to Denpasar, Bali.
As of the end of February, Singapore Airlines served 63 destinations, of which Scoot flies to 37 destinations.
