Scoot, the low-cost arm of Singapore Airlines Group, has started strengthening its presence in the country with the launch of daily non-stop direct flights in the Singapore-Thiruvananthapuram-Singapore sector on Tuesday.
The inaugural flight took off from Singapore at 8.40 p.m. local time and reached Thiruvananthapuram International Airport at 10 p.m. The new routes have been transferred from sister airline SilkAir that was operating in the sector since June 1999.
Scoot will be the only airline operating direct non-stop flights from Thiruvananthapuram, Coimbatore and Visakhapatnam to Singapore once expansion plans are completed. The flights from Coimbatore and Visakhapatnam will commence on October 27. Scoot already operates flights from Amritsar, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kochi, Lucknow, and Tiruchirappalli.
Timing
The flight TR 531 from Thiruvananthapuram will take off at 11 p.m. on all days to reach Singapore at 6.20 a.m. local time. In the return, flight TR 530 will leave Singapore at 8.40 p.m. local time on all days to reach Thiruvananthapuram at 10 p.m.
Scoot is using the A 320 aircraft that can carry 180 passengers like Silk Air. The increase in frequency from five weekly flights will come in handy for flyers, besides boosting Thiruvananthapuram’s connectivity with Singapore.
Customers can book connecting flights from here to Singapore and onwards to the wider SIA group network destinations, such as San Francisco and Los Angeles in the U.S.
Singapore Airlines will take over flight operations to Hyderabad and Kochi later. Silk Air will be wound up by 2020-21.
Competitive pricing
Vinod Kannan, Scoot Chief Commercial Officer, in a release said, “the transfer of SilkAir’s services to Scoot is intended to further optimise the SIA Group’s resources and present a better match of capacity to demand. Scoot is well-poised to provide competitive pricing for quality services”.
Underscoring Scoot’s commitment to growing the India market, the airline has a dedicated general manager and a local general sales agent, Elements Aviation, to oversee sales for eight cities. Scoot has also a dedicated sales manager for the State capital.
