Regulatory constraints crimp SIA’s capacity growth in some markets

Singapore Airlines (SIA) wants to continue adding capacity on its path to rebuild its network, but faces regulatory constraints for resuming services to some countries. China is the country where SIA faces the most notable entry constraints, but there are others as well, says Lee Lik Hsin, the carrier’s executive vice president, commercial. “China is one geographic region, and there are others like that as well, where we may not be able to add as many flights as we want,” he says, without elaborating further. Lee made the remarks during an analysts presentation following the release of SIA’s half-year results for its 2022/23 financial year, covering the six months ended 30 September. The carrier posted a record operating profit during the period following governments’ lifting of travel restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic. Still, the SIA Group was able to beef up its China network in the second quarter, including SIA’s addition of twice-weekly services to Beijing and weekly services to Shenzhen. Scoot also resumed weekly flights to Fuzhou, and increased frequencies to Nanjing to twice weekly. Separately, SIA has announced that has resumed code sharing with Virgin Australia. Virgin Australia will place its code on SIA flights to 42 destinations, while SIA will place its code on 64 Virgin domestic routes in Australia. More codeshare flights will be added subject to regulatory approval.<br/>