The news gets bleaker by the day:
Singapore Airlines (SIA) has taken its three remaining Airbus A340-300s out
of service and is grounding its nine remaining Airbus A310s in June as it
suffers from a sharp drop in business caused by the Severe Acute Respiratory
Syndrome (SARS) outbreak.
"With the revision of our flight schedules, we have stopped flying the three
A340-300s left in the fleet from 15 April, and the A310-300s will be phased
out in June, five months earlier than originally planned," it says in response to
queries from ATI.
Star Alliance carrier SIA has since the middle of March been badly affected
by a drop in business caused by the SARS outbreak and has cut around 20%
of its scheduled services.
Its three remaining A340-300s - as well as two on order - are being bought by
Boeing. The US manufacturer agreed in 1999 to acquire the carrier's entire
fleet of 17 A340-300s as part of a 777 deal.
Separately, there has been speculation in recent days that SIA will again seek
to defer deliveries of five firm-ordered A340-500s. The aircraft were
originally due to have arrived in January this year but late in 2001 first
deliveries were deferred to October 2003.
The carrier says today that there have been additional minor delays to the
delivery schedule but "we are still planning to launch A340-500 services
early in 2004".