Third time’s the charm, I guess?
In this post:
Singapore Airlines’ very long Singapore to Manchester flight
Manchester has been dealing with some inclement weather the past couple of days, including heavy snow. So we’ve seen quite a few diversions and cancelations, though nothing ended up being quite as big of a mess as the airport’s longest regularly scheduled flight.
This incident happened on Sunday, January 5, 2025, and involves Singapore Airlines flight SQ52, scheduled to operate from Singapore (SIN) to Manchester (MAN). The flight was operated by a five-year-old Airbus A350-900 with the registration code 9V-SMW.
The 6,810-mile flight is blocked at 14hr25min, scheduled to depart at 2:10AM, and arrive at 8:35AM the same day. So it’s a very long journey, even when things go as planned.
The aircraft took off from Singapore at 2:31AM, and began the very long trek to Manchester. Everything was fine until the plane approached the UK, when the runways in Manchester were closed due to heavy snow.
The plane briefly entered a holding pattern (presumably in hopes of the runways reopening), and then eventually diverted to London Gatwick (LGW), to refuel. The plane touched down there at 9:48AM, after a 15hr17min flight.
The plane refueled, and after the runways at Manchester reopened, the Singapore Airlines A350 was once again headed to its intended destination. The short 175-mile flight should’ve taken well under an hour, but that’s not how things played out.
The plane took off at 11:33AM (1hr45min after landing in London), and within around 30 minutes, the plane was very close to Manchester. But it then entered a holding pattern, as conditions once again deteriorated. The plane stayed in the holding pattern for roughly 45 minutes, before abandoning the plan, and returning to London… again.
The plane touched down in London at 1:51PM, 2hr18min after its departure.
Once back in London, the aircraft was refueled, and the crew waited for conditions to improve. Over four hours later, at 6:11PM, the aircraft finally took off for Manchester. This time around everything went perfectly, and the plane landed there at 6:54PM, after a 43-minute flight.
If my math is correct, the aircraft ultimately touched down in Manchester 24hr23min after it first departed Singapore, so talk about a long journey. This flight is supposed to continue to Houston (IAH), as the Manchester to Houston service is a fifth freedom flight.
In light of what happened, the Manchester to Houston flight ended up being delayed by over 31 hours. So rather than leaving at 10:05AM on Sunday, it left at 6:29PM on Monday. I imagine that relates to crew legality.
What a long day for everyone involved!
Singapore Airlines seemingly handled this situation as well as it could have. When bad weather strikes and runways close, there’s not much any crew can do. Of course it’s frustrating to divert, take off again, and divert again, but obviously the goal was to operate as close to on schedule as possible.
When there are ongoing weather events, there’s always an element of risk in terms of having to divert a second time, and it happens more often than you’d think.
The one thing that I’m curious about is the crewing logistics, given the double diversion. While Singapore Airlines has a large presence in London, all service to Heathrow (LHR) is with A350s and 777s. The airline does have a Gatwick to Singapore flight with an A350, so I can’t help but be curious how exactly this all played out.
Did the pilots of the initial A350 flight from Singapore to Manchester end up working the London to Manchester hop the first time around? What about the second time around? Because even with four pilots upfront, that’s a very long day for them.
I have to imagine that their duty hours were exceeded, so I wonder how exactly this was handled. The Gatwick to Singapore flight for the day would’ve already left by the time the diversion happened, and all those flights have been operating as scheduled. So I’m not even sure how a crew swap could’ve happened?
Bottom line
A Singapore Airlines A350 scheduled to fly from Singapore to Manchester had a rather complicated journey, due to bad weather in the UK. The plane ended up diverting to London twice, only to finally land in Manchester on the third try, after a journey of over 24 hours. I can’t help but be curious about the crewing logistics here, given duty limits for pilots.
What do you make of this complicated Singapore Airlines flight?
Shame they didn’t divert to Birmingham 90 miles down the road like Qatar, Etihad and others did.
SQ serves LHR. They must have swapped crew there for the final LHR-MAN segment.
Why do you say SQ handled this as well as possible? Social media has lit up with complaints from passengers about how poorly this was handled and how little information they received. SQ's delay handling since covid has been woeful (like many other things at the airline)
What are you entitled kiasu singaporean who can’t deal when things go wrong?
What else can they do better? Cancel the flights? Bus them off? Buy train tickets? What is your suggestion?
Would the MAN-IAH passengers be entitled to Uk261 compensation since I remember reading somewhere that an inbound aircraft delay, even if it’s outside of the airline’s control, would entitle the passengers to compensation?
It's on case by case basis since it's not in the regulation itself but rather it's established by case law. It's more likely to apply to the airline's own hubs than outstations. In this case I think SQ has a good case for compensation not being due.
While some US airlines have crew hour legalities that are less than FAA maximum duty day limitations. No US crew could have pulled this off and I wonder how Singapore did it. They probably have at least 4 crew members but generally time spent in crew rest while aloft does not permit you to add time to your duty day. Kudos are in order, I guess, but landing in bad weather after nearly 24 hours of duty
time is inherently unsafe.
If they had stopped in LGW, could they not have pulled in some staff based at LHR (assuming some redundancy) and swapped them during one of the refueling stops? You can make it from LHR to LGW in about an hour so that's fine and they might have had time to send a backup crew on a deadhead to LHR for the flight the original crew were meant to staff.
Meanwhile, In America, the crew times out with the first diversion and walks out to their hotels leaving stranded passengers.
Kudos to the SQ crew for having standards and the willingness to carry on...
Well, if the crew times out there's no other option - if SQ crew timed out, they would have to do the same. Although I would argue that in this case it would be much better for the passengers to be bussed or take a train from London. But as always, hindsight is 20/20 and no one could've known how is this going to play out.
Precisely, thinking about the greater good and accepting overtime pay, rather than timing themselves out at the 1st opportunity, and throwing all passengers under the bus.
I guess a few of us here is used to getting compensation from crew timeout.
London Heathrow isn't served by Singapore Airlines's A350s. Only A380s and B777s.
Singapore is currently GMT+8, so a Manchester arrival time of 19:11 would be 03:11 in Singapore. That's 24h 58m, having taken off at 02:13 in Singapore.
I am surprised the crew was able to wait, refuel and go again to MAN after the initial 14.25 hr flight. The flight deck crew was certainly ok as certainly a double crew. But what about the cabin crew?
I have the same question
This is being crazy for the flight.
Ben's point is valid. It would be concerning if the crew did the 2nd diversion after the longer time on the ground and multiple landings.
There's a point after which you simply have to say "it doesn't work" and wait for everyone to get rest including the pax. In this case, ground transportation is available from London to Manchester (if it was operating) and SQ can decide if it is worth flying an empty plane (or with just the SIN-IAH passengers) to IAH.
I’d much rather sit on a plane on the ground for 4 hours than on a bus for 6+ from Gatwick to Manchester, especially in a snowstorm in a country who can’t deal with a couple of snowflakes.
Same in America.
Depends on the snowflakes, if it's metaphorical or literal.
What happen to the passengers continuing to IAH, are they stuck in 1903?
I’m on the MAN IAH flight and they put us in a hotel. It’s been a long day. The lounges on Jan 5th had a virtual queue of 200 people with all the delays.
This was on odd one, I dont know why it abandoned its holding second time to Manchester. I was watching this one live (I am from Manchester) and the a380 landed before this flight abandoned and a 787 and a 777 landed just after. Someone on the flight was told not enough stand/parking space at Manchester which again doesnt make sense if other widebodys were landing before/after. I assumed it was going back to London...
This was on odd one, I dont know why it abandoned its holding second time to Manchester. I was watching this one live (I am from Manchester) and the a380 landed before this flight abandoned and a 787 and a 777 landed just after. Someone on the flight was told not enough stand/parking space at Manchester which again doesnt make sense if other widebodys were landing before/after. I assumed it was going back to London if crew were about to time out which if they went back up to manchester again doesnt make sense. Frustrating for those onboard thats for sure.
Once airborne crew don't time out until they land at whichever destination it may be. They just still be legal on scheduled/normal operating times prior to takeoff though, even on diversion recovery
The MAN-IAH (5th freedom route) finishes on the 1st April, I can’t see SQ continuing the route unless they get plenty of connecting traffic.
In a case like that, I imagine they don't let anyone get off the plane and clear customs in LGW? I'm sure some pax would have liked to do that and then just take the train/drive to their final destination, especially if it's between LGW and MAN.
All that effort to get to the winter paradise of Houston, TX