Singapore Airlines Ltd (SIA) yesterday began operating flights with full sets of crew members vaccinated against COVID-19 as the city-state seeks to rejuvenate its status as an international travel hub.
The airline said pilots and cabin crew on three international flights from Singapore had received both of the required doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
The Singapore government has urged workers at the national airline to sign up for its inoculation program in a bid to make SIA the world’s first carrier with all staff vaccinated against COVID-19.
Photo: AFP
Singapore Airlines said yesterday’s three flights with a fully vaccinated crew — to Jakarta, Bangkok and Phnom Penh — were among the first in the world.
The carrier said more than 90 percent of its cabin crew and pilots have signed up for the vaccine. Around 85 percent of those have received at least the first dose, and many have begun getting the second dose, it added. SIA expects all those who have signed up to receive the second dose by the end of next month.
Separately, SIA is swapping some of its Boeing Co wide-body jetliner orders for the larger 777X, giving a boost to the model as part of an agreement to slow near-term deliveries from the US planemaker.
SIA is to pare commitments for the Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner by 14 planes, while adding 11 777-9s to its existing order, according to a statement on Tuesday. The change brings the carrier’s total orders to 31 for Boeing’s largest aircraft, a vote of confidence in the heir to the manufacturer’s iconic 747 jumbo.
The move, combined with an earlier agreement to defer Airbus SE deliveries, will delay more than S$4 billion (US$3 billion) in capital spending, SIA said. The carrier has been hit especially hard by COVID-19 travel restrictions because there’s no domestic market to rely upon in the city-state.
With the latest agreement, SIA’s expenditure on aircraft will fall every year until March 2024. For the current fiscal year, its spending will drop to S$2.8 billion from S$5 billion. The carrier did not provide further detail on delivery timing by aircraft type.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
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