Singapore Airlines currently operates the world’s longest range plane, the A350-900ULR (with the ”ULR” standing for ”ultra long range”). Currently they exclusively fly these planes from Singapore to Los Angeles, Newark, and San Francisco. You can read a review of the world’s longest flight from Singapore to Newark here.
Continue reading: Singapore Airlines’ Next A350-900ULR Route?
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
How about Buenos Aires? I realize the premium market isn't there, but would love direct Asia to South America service!
I thought Los Angeles was closer to Singapore because it is South of San Francisco? Would it not be possible using a standard -900? United is able to run it via the 787-9; no reason why the A350 wouldn't be able to make it.
Does SIN--->EWR actually fly westbound like on the map picture?? Or is it just how the app or program shows it. I thought It would of went East on takeoff from Singapore.
@Brian - LAX is just over 300 miles further from Singapore than SF. I would wager SQ is taking a penalty on flying the regular a350-900 to SFO, unless they have a MTOW increase that makes it possible. The list range for the vanilla -900 is 8100 miles. SFO is just a hair over 8400 miles. They are pushing the limits of the range on that flight, which is why the -ULR is necessary for the extra 300 miles to LAX. Remember, the earth is round, not flat, so a straight line between two destinations isn't what you'd think it is. See the map Lucky posted in the article for the actual straight line route. It appears as an arc because of how the globe is projected on a flat map.
@Kyall, in northern winter, the EWR-SIN flight typicall flies all Eastbound thanks to strong northern hemisphere winds. It will fly over Europe and central Asia on its way from EWR to SIN, and over the Pacific on its way from SIN to EWR. In northern Summer, it often flies Eastbound on the SIN-EWR leg, and then due north, and then due south over the polar ice cap from EWR-SIN, because winds aren't as strong.
Could anyone explain why these planes have no first class at all? I'd dare say the demand is there. Thanks 🙂
Supporting the Toronto theory:
Toronto is a much bigger population area than Chicago and is Canada's busiest hub, nearly all StarAlliance.
Traffic to Asia from Toronto is very significantly higher than from Chicago, even when connecting passengers are counted.
Carriers have good loads to Asia, including premium rev passengers.
CX, which had the advantage of incumbency and reputation for premium standards, is struggling and their premium revs, looking for alternatives, are currently finding only AC and EVA. CX has always been a OneWorld anomaly in a StarAlliance city here in Toronto.
Canadians travelling overseas will often avoid a US connection if they have a choice.
Canadians travelling overseas will often avoid AC metal if they have a choice.
Canadians with high points balances have most of their points in Aeroplan.
Toronto seems more likely.
@DenB: Chicago's metropolitan population is 9.5 million people (MSA - Metropolitan Statistical Area). Toronto's metropolitan population is 5.9 million (CMA - Census Metropolitan Area). If you include the golden horseshoe around Lake Ontario, the population Toronto Pearson airport serves rises to 9.3 million people. All in all though, there is no case to be made that "Toronto is a much bigger population area than Chicago".
@Justin you are right, obviously. My bad, I planned to edit that sentence before submitting, to include a phrase like "asia-connected" or "asia-related", but forgot to go back before Submitting. This platform doesn't allow edits after publishing 🙁
My point is that Toronto offers more warm bodies for Asia flights than Chicago does. Ride the Toronto subway, then visit suburban shopping centres, then wander the halls of YYZ. Asian faces abound to a much greater degree than in Chicago or ORD.
I'll measure twice, cut once, next time I write here! I know you'll be watching @Justin 🙂
Do not rule out IAD as a potential A350-900ULR route.
However, I think a non-ULR that makes more sense for SQ would be 5th freedom between SIN-ZRH-ORD or SIN-ZRH-IAD. This would seriously compliment the other 5th freedom routes to the US they have currently.
This would also serve as an additional SQ flight to ZRH landing in the evening local time given its a major star alliance hub.
@DenB-Toronto metro is bigger than Chicago metro only if you include half of Canada. The actual metro is closer to Dallas-Ft. worth or DC/VA/MD.
IAD is the darkhorse pick here IMO. Capitol to Capitol route plus a *A hub. If there was a fifth freedom, my guess wouldn't be for ZRH but for CPH instead.
SIA used to fly to IAD back in the day, but I can't find any details on the flight info. Does anybody remember this?
Any prospect with flights to SFO and maybe ORD that Singapore would try to bolster its currently very weak Star Alliance relations with United? I would welcome seeing them lock arms tighter if it meant making it easier to fly Singapore on United ticket stock or make the MileagePlus partnership stronger.
Lucky, thanks for picking this up
MM is an awesome “boutique” blog for (SE) Asian readers.
Posted some comments on MM so I won’t repeat them here.
My money’s on Chicago or DC (the DC flight would beat the EWR flight by a good 121 miles). Toronto just isn’t premium enough to warrant a steady all-premium nonstop route, and their diaspora are with the Chinese & Filipinos (hence securing Cathay’s foothold). Chicago has the strongest case imo, mainly because although DC is high-income, I just don’t see the same level of demand there
Interesting points about YYZ & YVR - CX has that market cornered already
SIN location is SE Asia makes it less appealing, vs. HKG (more N. Asia hence shorter distance)
Also Canadian ties with SINGAPORE isn’t as ... strong as US ties
Just my S$0.02
"DenB® : CX has always been a OneWorld anomaly in a StarAlliance city here in Toronto."
u serious ??? quote per wikipedia
"Top 20 languages Toronto CMA, 2016 Population %
English 3,061,820 52.0
Cantonese 247,710 4.2
Mandarin 227,085 3.9
Panjabi (Punjabi) 171,230 2.9
Italian 151,415 2.6
Tagalog (Filipino) 136,115 2.3 "
The ethnic and business ties are huge between GTA and HKG. It's only in past few years AC has somewhat closed the capacity gap against CX. Historically, CX has always been miles ahead, whether it was against Canadian Pacific to YVR or Air Canada to YYZ.
i don't see ORD or YYZ at all. The nonstop logically should be IAH, The frames spared from switching that to nonstop can be used to open another 5th freedom route. I'll put my money on
SIN-IAH becomes nonstop
SIN-ICN-YVR is new 5th freedom
SIN-MAN becomes terminating service.
There is bad history between Canada and Singapore relating to flights. I don’t recall the details but believe it had to do with AC complaints against SQ. Toronto is well served by CX, EVA and PAL and others from Asia. AC will fight against more competition and the Canadian government will give in to them since they seem to abhor competition.
SQ in the past few years cancelled one stop service to Vancouver and Chicago.
SQ also had a brief recent run serving GRU unsuccessfully (Sao Paulo).
So maybe Houston or DC.
I thought because of Air Canada’s obstruction of Singapore Airlines from flying to Canada it won’t make sense as SQ won’t be able to feed into Air Canada’s network? But I hope it can be to Santiago Chile or Mexico City since there’s hardly any direct flights between Asia and south or Central America.
Singapore Airlines made a facebook post of the attractions of Houston yesterday.
I wonder if that has anything to do with the spares A350-900ULR 😉
SINMEX would be super interesting, but I don't think it will happen.
BTW, Aeromexico flies to PVG and NRT, and NH do flies to MEX also.
My bet would be ORD, as it has more Business travellers, and it is THE UA hub, can serve many SQ offline cities, while they don't have to back track at EWR.
While YYZ is mostly VFR traffic, which can't sustain the all Premium Configuration of 359ULR.
They should really add a Canadian destination, for once, and Toronto would be a very great candidate for that.
I flew Singapore airlines LAX-SIN premium economy and the service was just horrible. They didn't even serve drinks with the meal service. Even water. The seat was ok. Both United and American s premium economy is much better in regards to service and food.
I don't get the math on the number of planes. How is it possible to operate daily flights to EWR and LAX with just 4 planes when flight times are 15+ hours?
Imma guess...
Toronto launched by SQ, Vancouver launched by AC.
Or Bogota by SQ AV.
I would think SQ would like to develop a relationship with AC having already done so with UA
IAH is too far nonstop- over 10k if you do the Great Circle mapping.
It's Chicago or DC, or a second flight to Newark.
@Robb- LOL- AA and in particular UA premium economy is terrible. There's no comparison.
Sao Paulo is a long ways from Singapore but I doubt there will be a non-stop SIN-GRU flight.
I’m with Memento. Would love an Ord Asia direct alternative to United as the intl Pokaris experience has regressed significantly.
It will be for SIN-JFK direct flight. When the service is on, the SIN-FRA-JFK aircraft will be replaced by B777-300ER (no longer with A380-800). It will mark the time when no SQ A380 serves the U.S.
Doubt it’s Toronto. Remember SQ pulled out of Vancouver before. Someone can dig the history but I think it was Canadian airlines petitioning the Canadian government against SQ which made it very hard for them to do business here.
The reason YVR was an issue for SQ was because it would stop at ICN which would steal AC traffic. Now with the A350-900 seen at SEA, YVR is possible with the same aircraft and would be similar to the SEA-SIN route. Once SQ even stopped their SEA flight at YVR due to high winds, then flew direct to SIN without stopping anywhere to it is very much possible.