Air Seychelles Goes Direct to Singapore

Air Seychelles is to resume weekly non-stop flights from Mahe to Singapore, dropping the existing stopover in the Indian city of Chennai. The carrier had previously served the route directly in the past but in November 2010 it introduced the supplementary stop in Chennai. In the past year it carried less than 1,000 O&D passengers between the Indian Ocean archipelago and the Indian city, with approximately four times as many flying to or from Singapore.

The airline says it planned to establish Chennai as the “hub of its operations in Asia” and to also expand further into India and other Asian destinations as its direct flight to Singapore was not making a profit. However, the airline notes that the stop lengthened the flight time by two hours and additional costs incurred on the ground in Chennai has increased the loss. This has resulted in it posting a loss of 16.5 million during the past three and a half months which is equal to the loss of a full year of operations to Singapore.

“Our decision to suspend these flights has not been taken lightly as we had invested money and time to make this route profitable. Unfortunately this is not case and in the absence of 5th Freedom Traffic Rights to uplift passengers between Chennai and Singapore, we have no other option but to suspend our weekly Chennai operations,” said Maurice Loustau-Lalanne, Executive Chairman, Air Seychelles.

The last flight to Chennai will operate on May 23, returning on May 25 and from June 1 the Mahe – Singapore link will again be served non-stop once every week. This is the second time Air Seychelles has suspended a route to India; it previously served Mumbai from 2001 to 2005 but suspended flights to due to fierce competition. However, Maurice Loustau-Lalanne has not ruled out future expansion into the country, a market he describes as “important” for the carrier. “A dedicated flight to India and back to Mahe is not ruled out,” he said but this will be reliant upon an on-going review of its operations and the development of a revised business strategy.

Schedule:

HM062 SEZ1150 – 2320SIN 767 3
HM063 SIN0020 – 0305SEZ 767 5

---

BE THE FIRST WITH THE NEWS…

To keep up to date on a daily basis with the latest new route announcements and changes to airline flight schedules please bookmark our Breaking News page or follow our @TheHUBRoutes twitter feed.

NOTE: Schedule data extracted from Flightbase for week commencing April 14, 2011; Traffic data extracted from IATA BSP system for the year ending January 2011.