Singapore Airlines will again fly a wider aircraft on the Kolkata-Singapore route from March.
The airline said on Tuesday that it was set to fly the Airbus A350-900 medium-haul wide-body aircraft from March 26.
Before the Covid pandemic broke out, the carrier operated the bigger plane between Kolkata and Singapore.
But since the services resumed after the Covid-induced disruption, the airline has been flying the narrow-body Boeing 737-MAX on the route.
The daily flight takes around four hours to reach Singapore from Kolkata.
Starting March 26, the wider plane will leave Kolkata on Sundays, Mondays and Saturdays and the narrower one on the remaining four days.
“Singapore Airlines will continue to operate daily flights between Kolkata and Singapore, with the A350 services operating every Saturday, Sunday and Monday. The inaugural A350 service, SQ 516, will depart from Kolkata’s Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport at 2355hrs on 26 March 2023. The Airline will continue to operate its B737-8 narrow-body services through the remainder of the week,” the carrier said.
The narrow-body aircraft has 10 seats in business class and 145 in economy class. The wider aircraft will have 40 business-class seats and 263 economy-class seats, said an official of the carrier.
Tour operators in Kolkata said more seats would mean cheaper fares.
“The fare is going to drop because of more seats. The carrier is going to come up with competitive fares. The demand for business class tickets has gone up significantly in the past six months. We have not been able to accommodate fliers in business class,” said Anil Punjabi, chairman, east, Travel Agents Federation of India.
“Till March 2020, the A350- 900 was in operation in this sector. We had requested the airline to bring it back, citing robust demand,” he said.
Now, a Kolkata-Singapore round trip in business class costs around Rs 60,000. Once the wider aircraft starts flying, the trip is likely to cost around Rs 50,000, tour operators said.
“In the smaller aircraft, even business class seats are not comfortable. Passengers want more comfort,” said Manav Soni, chairman, eastern region, Travel Agents Association of India.
“The Singapore Airlines A350-900 features higher ceilings, larger windows, an extra wide body delivering more space and comfort, as well as lighting designed to reduce jetlag,” the carrier said.