Scoot plans more flights to China, from 14 a week now to 57 by June

Singapore Airlines’ budget arm Scoot will restore China flights to more than half of pre-pandemic levels by June. The airline said on Wednesday it will progressively increase its flights to China from the current 14 a week to 57. Before the pandemic, Scoot operated 107 weekly flights to China, said a spokesman. The restoration of flights comes after China reopened its borders significantly in January as it scrapped quarantine measures for overseas arrivals after nearly three years of strict pandemic restrictions. Before Covid-19 hit, China was the world’s largest source of outbound tourists, who took 170m trips and contributed US$253b to the global economy in 2019. Earlier this week, Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan stressed Singapore’s desire to see flights and other connections return to how they were before the pandemic. On his first trip to China since it relaxed its zero-Covid-19 policy, Dr Balakrishnan told his Chinese counterpart Qin Gang that there used to be 400 flights a week linking Singapore and China, while there are just 56 now. In January, the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) said it expects Chinese tourist arrivals in 2023 to be 30 to 60% of pre-Covid-19 numbers of about 3.6m visitors a year. However, this will largely depend on the speed at which China allows outbound travel, as well as the pace at which flights between Singapore and China resume, said STB’s assistant CE of international group Juliana Kua.<br/>