Scoot (TR, Singapore Changi) plans to add around one dozen extra aircraft to its fleet this year, a mix of narrowbodies and widebodies, on top of the E190-E2s it is presently inducting, CEO Leslie Thng told reporters last week. Scoot also plans to add four to six new destinations to its network.
In addition to four E2s still to be delivered from a 2023 order, Thng said the new aircraft would include seven to nine A320s and three B787s. The ch-aviation fleets module notes Scoot already operates a mix of these aircraft types, including fourteen A320-200s, six A320-200Ns, nine A321-200NX, eleven B787-8s, and ten B787-9s.
Scoot's aircraft order book includes twelve A320-200Ns, six A321-200NX, two B787-8s, one B787-9, and the four E190-E2s.
Thng says the airline would use the extra aircraft to increase frequencies on some existing routes and begin flights to new cities, though he did not name the candidate destinations.
"We're still working on the details," he said. "For new flights and new destinations, there's a whole process that we need to go through, not just to look at projected demand, we also need to see whether we can operationalise."
Almost one year after introducing the first E190-E2 services, the CEO said the five E2s operating for Scoot so far had allowed it to "right-size" supply to passenger demand and improve the economics of certain routes. Passenger load factors on the Embraers are running in "the high 80s."
Thng also said that the decision to axe flights to Berlin Brandenburg and replace them with flights to Vienna was based on commercial considerations and aircraft utilisation reasons.
"Berlin had started off with certain projections back then, which is different from what we observed post-COVID-19," he said.
The Berlin flights will end on March 28, 2025, and the Vienna flights will commence on June 3.
