Singapore (VNA) - Singapore Airlines (SIA) willcontinue increasing flights gradually to reach about 15 percent of its usualpassenger capacity by the end of 2020.
The carrier and its regional arm, SilkAir, will bereinstating flights to Brunei, Fukuoka in Japan, Kathmandu in Nepal and Male inthe Maldives in the next three months.
Flights will also increase on some existing routes. Forexample, SIA will be flying daily to and from Bangkok (Thailand) by December.It will also operate daily flights to Melbourne in Australia by November andtwo flights daily on most days in December.
Flight frequencies to other cities, including Dhaka(Bangladesh), Hong Kong (China) and Amsterdam (the Netherlands), will also bestepped up.
All other flights originally scheduled for October toDecember but not listed in its updated schedule are cancelled. Affectedcustomers will be informed via SMS and e-mail.
The airline said that it expects to be operating at lessthan 50 percent of its usual capacity by the end of its financial year in Marchnext year.
SIA's predicament mirrors that of the global aviationindustry, which has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. Last week, theInternational Air Transport Association downgraded its traffic forecast forthis year to a 66 percent decline, worse than an earlier 63 percent estimate./.