Singapore Airlines is reducing the frequency of its flights to London Heathrow by 14% in November, but A380 capacity will remain the same, including on some flights with the SQ318/321.
Singapore Airlines has made some changes to its London Heathrow flight schedule for the first few weeks of the upcoming winter flight season in the north of the country. This has resulted in a surprise reduction in frequencies on its most financially lucrative route between the Lion City and London Heathrow Airport.
This will result in a reduction in the total offer from 28 to 24 flights per week; however, the Airbus A380 service will remain at 14 flights per week.
This could be good news for some passengers who booked selected SQ318/321 flights during this period, as they may now find that their aircraft type has been upgraded from the Boeing 777-300ER to the Airbus A380 (including the suite cabin).
(Photo: Heathrow Airport Limited)
The schedule
Singapore Airlines normally operates four daily flights between Changi Airport and London Heathrow Airport, two with the Airbus A380 and two with the Boeing 777-300ER.
For the first four weeks of the upcoming winter season in the north, which the 27 October to 23 November 2024 PeriodThis timetable will be adjusted by reducing operations from 28 flights per week in each direction to 24 flights per week.
There will also be restructuring of aircraft type allocation on some services. This could be good news for some passengers who have already booked flights SQ318/321, as they may now benefit from an upgrade from the Boeing 777-300ER to the Airbus A380.
- The SQ308/319 service will be reduced from 7/week to 3/week, with the Airbus A380
- SQ318/321 Service upgrades for the Airbus A380 for 3/week, 4/week remain on the Boeing 777-300ER
Here you can see the revised schedule for these services during this period.
Singapore London Heathrow
Oct. 27, 2024 – Nov. 23, 2024
* Next day
London Heathrow Singapore
Oct. 27, 2024 – Nov. 23, 2024
* Next day
During this period, there will only be three flights from London Heathrow on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, as services SQ308/319 will be cancelled on these days. However, to compensate, flight SQ318/321 will be upgraded to the Airbus A380.
This should enable passengers booked on the affected flights SQ308/319 to be rebooked on flights SQ318/321 in the same cabin class with the same product standard (e.g. suites).
(Photo: MainlyMiles)
The total weekly seat capacity on SIA’s London Heathrow route will fall from 10,290 to 9,234 per week. a discount of 10%.
The other operators, British Airways and Qantas, will maintain their usual Singapore – London Heathrow flight schedule during this time, i.e. twice and once daily respectively.
Regular timetable from 24 November
From Sunday, November 24, 2024, Singapore Airlines will resume its regular flight schedule on the London Heathrow route.
These are twice daily flights with the Airbus A380 (SQ308/319 and SQ322/317) and twice daily flights with the Boeing 777-300ER (SQ306/305 and SQ318/321), as described below.
Singapore London Heathrow
24 November 2024 – 29 March 2025
| Days | |||||||||
| M | T | B | T | F | S | S | |||
 |
SQ306 777-300ER |
||||||||
| SIN 01:10 |
LHR 07:25 |
||||||||
| Duration: 14:15 | |||||||||
|
SQ308 A380 |
||||||||
| SIN 09:00 |
LHR 15:35 |
||||||||
| Duration: 14:35 | |||||||||
|
SQ318 777-300ER |
||||||||
| SIN 12:45 |
LHR 19:10 |
||||||||
| Duration: 14:25 | |||||||||
|
SQ322 A380 |
||||||||
| SIN 23:45 |
LHR 05:55 am* |
||||||||
| Duration: 14:10 | |||||||||
* Next day
London Heathrow Singapore
24 November 2024 – 29 March 2025
| Days | |||||||||
| M | T | B | T | F | S | S | |||
|
SQ305 777-300ER |
||||||||
| LHR 09:10 |
SIN 06:00 am* |
||||||||
| Duration: 12:50 | |||||||||
|
SQ317 A380 |
||||||||
| LHR 10:55 |
SIN 07:50 am* |
||||||||
| Duration: 12:55 | |||||||||
|
SQ319 A380 |
||||||||
| LHR 20:35 |
SIN 5:30 p.m.* |
||||||||
| Duration: 12:55 | |||||||||
|
SQ321 777-300ER |
||||||||
| LHR 22:05 |
SIN 19:00 hrs* |
||||||||
| Duration: 12:55 | |||||||||
* Next day
Renovated SilverKris Lounge
While a temporary reduction in SIA flights to London Heathrow is bad news, there is also some good news: the airline’s SilverKris lounge at the airport recently reopened after a six-month closure for renovations.
(Photo: Singapore Airlines)
The lounge’s decor and style will be aligned with the latest design concept that will be introduced in Singapore Changi Airport’s T3 lounges in 2022.
(Photo: Head for Points)
SIA’s “Cash Cow” route
The reduction in frequencies to and from London Heathrow is a surprising move by Singapore Airlines and, apart from the obvious reductions during the COVID-19 period, not something we normally see.
It is almost impossible to get take-off and landing times at the airport (SIA tries almost every season) and the route is widely known as the airline’s “cash cow”, generating the highest revenue of any route before COVID and undoubtedly still today.
The airline’s earnings amounted to over US$2 million (Singapore dollars 2.7 million). per day On flights to Heathrow Airport alone, the airport generated 33% more revenue in 2019 than on flights between Singapore and Sydney (2.0 million Singapore dollars per day) and 68% more than third place Jakarta (1.6 million Singapore dollars per day).
For this reason, London has always been a priority destination for Singapore Airlines in terms of capacity and state-of-the-art cabin products. Therefore, we suspect that this temporary restriction of services is due to other operational reasons, such as fleet or crew constraints.
The airline will certainly not implement the cuts permanently, as in this case it would lose its coveted slots at Heathrow Airport.
SIA also flies to London Gatwick
As you may recall, Singapore Airlines began operating five weekly Airbus A350 flights to and from London’s second-busiest airport, Gatwick, in June this year.
(Photo: Gatwick Airport)
Although this option is less popular with most of our readers, you should not ignore it when looking for rewards.
For the month of November 2024, when these service cuts come into force at Heathrow, there are still 94 At the time of writing, there are 39 instantly confirmable Saver Business award seats available to and from London Gatwick, compared to just 69 to and from London Heathrow.
Considering that there are only 44 flights per month (both directions) from Gatwick and 216 flights from Heathrow, the average award seats in business class to and from Gatwick are far better.
This is what SIA’s Gatwick flight schedule looks like for the northern winter season.
Singapore London Gatwick Airport
27 Oct 2024 – 28 Mar 2025
| Days | |||||||||
| M | T | B | T | F | S | S | |||
 |
SQ312 A350LH |
||||||||
| SIN 23:55 |
LGW 06:25 am* |
||||||||
| Duration: 14:30 | |||||||||
* Next day
London Gatwick Airport Singapore
27 Oct 2024 – 28 Mar 2025
| Days | |||||||||
| M | T | B | T | F | S | S | |||
|
SQ309 A350LH |
||||||||
| LGW 09:20 |
SIN 06:15 am* |
||||||||
| Duration: 12:55 | |||||||||
* Next day
Singapore Airlines recently had its slot request for daily flights to and from London Gatwick approved for the winter season, but at the time of writing, no frequency increase has been announced.
KrisFlyer Rewards
Here you will find a reminder of the number of KrisFlyer miles needed for the Singapore – London route.
| KrisFlyer redemption (One Way) Singapore ⇄ London |
||
| saver | Advantage | |
| Business | 42,000 | 70,000 |
| Premium economy | 71,000 | n/a |
| Business | 103,500 | 123,000 |
| First / Suites | 141,000 | 225,500 |
Singapore Airlines is temporarily reducing its flight schedule to and from London Heathrow for a period of four weeks between October 27 and November 23, 2024, a surprise move on its “cash cow” route where the airline usually tries to increase his presence instead of reducing it.
During this period, there will only be three SQ308/319 flights per week. However, to compensate, the SQ318/321 flight will switch from the Boeing 777-300ER to the Airbus A380 on selected days.
There will be five weekly flights to and from London Gatwick Airport as usual in November and you may want to look out for better business class award seats on this route – on average six times better per flight than at Heathrow during the month.
(Cover image: Heathrow Airport Limited)
