In the plane during the flight on this route, the cabin crew consists of 13 people (nine cabin crew members and four pilots), which means that on that flight, the number of crew members exceeds the number of passengers on board.
The Airbus A350-900ULR aircraft has a total of 161 seats, which is a particularly rare configuration since the plane does not have economy class – instead it has 67 business class seats and 94 premium economy class seats. The flight is so long that it must be flown by a specially configured A350-900ULR with additional fuel capacity.
One of the passengers posted a photo of an empty plane on social networks.
Is this route usually so empty?
Singapore Airlines currently operates the world’s longest daily flight, so is it normal that there are only 11 passengers on this flight? While the actual flight load is not public information, you can look at seat maps for upcoming flights on this route. Advance seat maps aren’t a 100% accurate indicator of how full the flights are (as people can book without selecting seats), but they do give you a good idea of how many tickets have been sold.
Looking for flights from Singapore to New York in the next three days, the number of passengers on board is 20, 33 and 25.
So while 11 passengers is definitely not enough, it appears that this flight is consistently less than 20% full. Ultimately, this is not too surprising. Singapore has some of the strictest entry requirements of all countries; most foreigners are not allowed entryand Singapore residents and citizens must be quarantined upon arrival. While passengers can fly through Singapore on their way to some destinations, Singapore Airlines’ network of connections is currently quite limited.Why is Singapore Airlines bothering to operate this route?
Looking at the number of people flying this route, questions can be asked:
- If this flight is consistently empty, why is the airline serving it?
- Are airlines wasting as much money on this route as you might think?
- Is it entirely justified to waste so much fuel to fly 11 people halfway around the world?
The reality is that while domestic flights in the US are currently full, most flights between countries with border restrictions do not have many passengers. Rather, these flights are mainly intended to transport cargo that has to get between countries anyway. In some cases, airlines ship vaccines and other essential, time-sensitive goods.
Singapore Airlines suspended this route at the start of the pandemic and resumed it in November 2020. When the airline resumed the route, it noted that cargo transportation would be very important.
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