Singapore Airlines will cut five weekly flights to Jakarta, from Dec 1, as directed by the Indonesian civil aviation authorities, the airline said.
SIA which has been operating 63 flights a week to and from Jakarta has been told to cut five flights a week due to runway maintenance works at Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport.
The five affected flights are SQ962 and SQ963 on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
SIA apologised to customers for the inconvenience and said it will progressively contact those affected to accommodate them on other flights.
Responding to media queries, a Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) spokesman said the authority is aware of SIA’s plans.
“CAAS hopes that the runway maintenance works will be completed expeditiously and that the impact on airlines will be fairly distributed,” she said.
CAAS also hopes that the Indonesian civil aviation authorities will be able to allow Singapore Airlines to resume all 63 weekly services to Jakarta as soon as possible to reduce the impact on business travelers and tourists, who rely heavily on air services to travel between Singapore and Jakarta.
The latest development comes several weeks after SIA said it had had to postpone plans for a thrice-weekly Singapore-Jakarta-Sydney service, which had been due to start on Nov 23.
The Indonesian authorities had also cited runway maintenance works as the reason for withdrawing approval for the route.