No really a surprise but Singapore announced it will stop serving Sao Paulo GRU on October 20.

Unless the Brazilian economy was booming, this flight was bound to struggle with SQ competing with 2-stops beyond SIN with the ME3 and Turkish offering 1-stops.

This service had been started March 2011.

Asia to Brazil is too far and the economy in Latin America has not been this bad in decades.

Well, the good thing for them, is that if they ever return, their A359ULRs have the range to do it nonstop. So there's that.

Whether the market could ever recover sufficiently to justify it, especially without a partner, remains to be seen.

Couldn't have helped that LATAM have launched services on GRU-BCN and have scaled it up to 6x weekly as well. Shame that the service is gone but couldn't have been doing well with the Brazilian economy in shambles. Hope to see a SIN-GRU nonstop on the A359ULRs though! (Wishful thinking I know)

If CA leaves will there be any carriers from Asia east of Dubai?

thekorean wrote:

If CA leaves will there be any carriers from Asia east of Dubai?

Nope, unless another airline from India or anywhere else chooses to launch service to GRU, CA will be the last airline from this area of the world operating to GRU.

It seems that Venezuela isn't the only South American country that is losing airline service.

chiraagnt wrote:

thekorean wrote:

If CA leaves will there be any carriers from Asia east of Dubai?

Nope, unless another airline from India or anywhere else chooses to launch service to GRU, CA will be the last airline from this area of the world operating to GRU.

And I suspect they will be gone soon.

planeguy wrote:

It seems that Venezuela isn't the only South American country that is losing airline service.

For different reasons, but true. KE is gone. Now SQ. I wonder if SA will continue after JJ starts GRU-JNB.


The fact that JJ is doing well on this route (GRU-BCN) clearly managed to steal some pax from SQ, which is a shame. Service-wise SQ is much better than JJ 767.

How will this affect flights to Barcelona? will they be maintained with a change of time/day or scrapped too

aa

SIN-BCN will be maintained.

The last flight will be on Oct 20. Services between Singapore and Barcelona will continue.

http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/t ... ervices-to

geoshina wrote:

For different reasons

What different reasons?

Seems like the same reason to me: economy's crashing and burning.

geoshina wrote:

I wonder if SA will continue after JJ starts GRU-JNB.

Well SAA operates 10 weekly flights, so don't think the 3 weekly from LATAM will make SA can the route, perhaps might push them to reduce again to daily eventually.

With so many airlines cutting or reducing Brazil routes, one standout is Turkish. They have never made a profit in Brazil, even in good times. Their route is expensive to operate with a tag to EZE. Keeping the route daily with a 77W must be costing them a fortune, and not a small one.

incitatus wrote:

With so many airlines cutting or reducing Brazil routes, one standout is Turkish. They have never made a profit in Brazil, even in good times. Their route is expensive to operate with a tag to EZE. Keeping the route daily with a 77W must be costing them a fortune, and not a small one.

As long as the route keeps generating revenue for the other 200+ destinations that connects to IST-GRU-EZE, TK will be happy to keep it.

6th freedom carriers don't care so much for economics of the route on a stand alone basis, but they do care for the revenue generated for the whole network, which will get better as KE and SQ leave the Brazilian market and Argentina economy gets better.

This takes away SQ's sole destination to South America, a region that is still by and large alien to Southeast Asia as a whole at least from a laymen perspective. I'm not sure how how much business there is between South America and Southeast Asia but not much I imagine

infinit wrote:

This takes away SQ's sole destination to South America, a region that is still by and large alien to Southeast Asia as a whole at least from a laymen perspective. I'm not sure how how much business there is between South America and Southeast Asia but not much I imagine

Which makes it more head-scratching when people proposed SQ launching SIN-GRU nonstop ....

chiraagnt wrote:

thekorean wrote:

If CA leaves will there be any carriers from Asia east of Dubai?

Nope, unless another airline from India or anywhere else chooses to launch service to GRU, CA will be the last airline from this area of the world operating to GRU.

What makes you think anybody from India will launch a route to Brazil? Air India has been limiting its expansion to Europe for the moment (VIE, DME, MXP, with MAD in the works), Jet has its hands full shifting from BRU to AMS and rotating its fleet whilst juggling its relationship with Etihad, and neither have the metal with adequate lift to fly out of BOM/DEL and go for a route which requires extreme range on a full payload.

In any case, South America is one of the few pockets in the world where India's cultural presence is fairly limited.

I have read this argument that what matters for 6th freedom airlines is network revenue many times. At the end of the day, counting network revenue or flight revenue does not change the amount of money that comes through the door. Brazil revenue sucks for pretty much every airline - that is evident from the string of route cuts announced.

Much network revenue is replaceable. If an airline cuts one route, it loses some revenue and traffic on connecting flights. But those seats that become empty can be re-sold in other markets. If the network load factor is high, cutting one route with a lot of connecting traffic will have negligible effect on the network load factor - replacement bottoms take the freed up seats.

Spiderguy252 wrote:

chiraagnt wrote:

thekorean wrote:

If CA leaves will there be any carriers from Asia east of Dubai?

Nope, unless another airline from India or anywhere else chooses to launch service to GRU, CA will be the last airline from this area of the world operating to GRU.

What makes you think anybody from India will launch a route to Brazil? Air India has been limiting its expansion to Europe for the moment (VIE, DME, MXP, with MAD in the works), Jet has its hands full shifting from BRU to AMS and rotating its fleet whilst juggling its relationship with Etihad, and neither have the metal with adequate lift to fly out of BOM/DEL and go for a route which requires extreme range on a full payload.

In any case, South America is one of the few pockets in the world where India's cultural presence is fairly limited.

He never said they will. He said unless someone from India starts it.

Spiderguy252 wrote:

chiraagnt wrote:

thekorean wrote:

If CA leaves will there be any carriers from Asia east of Dubai?

In any case, South America is one of the few pockets in the world where India's cultural presence is fairly limited.

Indians make up more than 40% of Guyana's population. That's about 300,000 who descend from those who came between the 1830s to 1910s.

Not that it would support any kind of Georgetown-India route, but interesting nonetheless.

No airline is currently flying CPT-GRU, if SQ sees an opportunity there, probably it should think about SIN-CPT-GRU.

thekorean wrote:

Spiderguy252 wrote:

chiraagnt wrote:

Nope, unless another airline from India or anywhere else chooses to launch service to GRU, CA will be the last airline from this area of the world operating to GRU.

What makes you think anybody from India will launch a route to Brazil? Air India has been limiting its expansion to Europe for the moment (VIE, DME, MXP, with MAD in the works), Jet has its hands full shifting from BRU to AMS and rotating its fleet whilst juggling its relationship with Etihad, and neither have the metal with adequate lift to fly out of BOM/DEL and go for a route which requires extreme range on a full payload.

In any case, South America is one of the few pockets in the world where India's cultural presence is fairly limited.

He never said they will. He said unless someone from India starts it.

Haha in all fairness, I did say 'unless someone starts it'. I just think the next airline to try a South American service would be one from a large economy like India. China already has a carrier represented even though CA may be losing money on the route(government prestige and what not). I wonder how they're doing on the PEK-YUL-HAV flights as well!

While Jet has its hands full and will be unlikely to launch flights with the EY alliance and scissor hub at BRU, AI may take a stab at It considering they're expanding their hub at DEL. Although they do not have the metal and the ME3 has adequate coverage of that sector... One can hope! Also, ASEAN and South America have really really poor coverage considering their economic ties are improving (albeit on a small base). With SQ gone from the market, the ME3 seem set to gobble up this market as well...

chiraagnt wrote:

While Jet has its hands full and will be unlikely to launch flights with the EY alliance and scissor hub at BRU, AI may take a stab at It considering they're expanding their hub at DEL. Although they do not have the metal and the ME3 has adequate coverage of that sector... One can hope!

If anything, I hope it doesn't happen. It'll be AI throwing money down into a sinkhole (again).

There are plenty of destinations that Indian carriers can serve even before they ever venture into South America. A few examples: Indonesia, Philippines, South Africa, more Chinese frequencies, etc.