The shift in flights is a vote of confidence by Silkair in Darwin with the existing redeye services being low risk for Silkair as they utilise off-peak hours to get better use from their existing fleet, whereas the new day/early evening services will utilise fleet in peak time. Hopefully Silkair's faith will be rewarded and Silkair will be encouraged to increase flights to daily.
It will be also interesting to see what changes Virgin Australia make to their domestic services out of Darwin. Virgin Australia code-share on Silkair's Darwin flights, although currently there is little opportunity for passengers to use Darwin as a hub between Singapore and Australia's southern cities. The new Monday and Friday flights which arrive in Darwin at 4:10pm from Singapore should connect with the 6:00pm (daylight savings times) Melbourne service.
The new Silkair schedule will look something like this (although fight numbers may change):
SIN DRW MI802 37 09:55 16:05
DRW SIN MI801 37 17:10 20:00
SIN DRW MI802 15 19:30 01:45
DRW SIN MI801 26 02:30 05:30
Ben Sandilands in his Plane Talking blog had some thoughts on Silkair's changes, along with some thought provoking comments from readers.
Silkair changes some Singapore-Darwin flights Why not all?
July 25, 2012 – 7:20 pm, by Ben Sandilands
When Singapore Airlines’ subsidiary Silkair began flying the Darwin route in March it had the sort of schedule its competitors would have devised for it.
The two class full service A320 left Darwin at 2.50 am and arrived in Singapore at 5.50 am, which was not exactly optimal for connections to most Singapore Airlines flights, and a bad start to a day of business in Singapore for those who had sat up for much of the night.
On the way back the current flights leave Singapore at 7.50 pm and arrive in Darwin at 2 am, which is useless for almost anything, especially connections to elsewhere in the Top End.
However in the northern winter timetable period, which starts on 28 October, two out of the four weekly departures will leave Darwin at 5.10 pm and reach Singapore at 8 pm, which is much better for connections to Europe, or a good night’s sleep if you are doing business in the city the next day.
These two rotations will also fly into Darwin from Singapore as daylight services, leaving at 9.55 am and arriving at 4.05 pm, which is much better for every likely travel scenario.
But that still leaves two days on which the current inexplicably inconvenient timetable prevails.
The Silkair service to Darwin, which is also sold by Virgin Australia under its alliance with Singapore Airlines, underlined the importance the carriers put on the growth of resource industry travel between Asia and the Australian north.
Perhaps similar importance ought to be placed on asking the most obvious of questions, which is “What times would best suit our customers?”
Comments (3) | Permalink 3 Comments
- johnb78 Posted July 25, 2012 at 10:35 pm | Permalink Presumably it reflects Silkair’s fleet logistics – the 1950-0200-0250-0550 rota is a way of using a plane that would otherwise not be doing much of note – sacrificing one Singapore-NEARBY return trip that would otherwise have grounded the plane around midnight, in order to test the market.
Moving to a rota that ties up the plane for several hours during the working day suggests the ghost service has been successful enough that Silkair is now considering taking planes off shorter SE Asian routes for the whole flight duration.
Presumably it’s still keeping the 2pw graveyard shift flights because it isn’t sure how much of a demand uptick will be gained from flights at a sensible hour. If the sensibly-timed flights end up sold out, then you’d expect to see 4 or even 7pw sensible flights in due course.
- wordfactory Posted July 26, 2012 at 7:33 am | Permalink The original schedule may not look pretty as a local route, but it was put there because it connects with all of SIA’s Asian and European services eastbound, while eastbound it arrives for the start of the business day and all SIA’s onward connections in Asia. The new schedule connects westbound with all European services and is better for the local body clock, but, in both directions, eliminates most Asian connections.
- Clint Storer Posted July 26, 2012 at 3:11 pm | Permalink Well I would think the Airline has tested the waters with the local market and is trying to please as many as possible without sacrificing profits. Shouldn’t we think ourselves fortunate that we have an airline that is listening, they have heard the Darwin people ask for daytime services and so are giving them this option, whilst still ensuring the most popular route is not completely sacrificed. Keeping 2 flights a week as per the current schedule still allows perfect connections for the leisure markets to popular spots such as phuket and bangkok, whilst having 2 flights a week that will connect with the European, South African and SASC (Indian) market. Let’s not forget this is a business and they need to ensure the popular routes are still being serviced. For so long the people of Darwin have begged for more options, a full service carrier and professionalism, and SilkAir have delivered. But we can not get too demanding we only have a small population compared to most of the SilkAir destinations, and it is understandable that with resources stretched they would need to look after the highest selling ports first. If Darwin wants more flights and more options, they need to get on board and make the airline realise there are profits to be made here. They aren’t running a charity you know!