Singapore Airlines steps up campaign to enter US route

Singapore Airlines will use Jetstar’s aggressive push into Singapore as leverage to back its own claims to be allowed to fly between Australia and the US, according to The Sydney Morning Herald

Jetstar’s decision to make Singapore its Asian hub – instead of Bangkok or Ho Chi Minh City – has given Singapore Airlines the ammunition it needs in its long-standing push to be allowed to fly directly to the US. At present, direct flights are limited to Australian and US airlines.

Qantas’s no-frills offshoot is using so-called seventh-freedom rights – the most liberal concessions under bilateral arrangements – to set up its base in Singapore and fly to other Asian destinations.

Singapore Airlines’ regional vice-president, Subhas Menon, said the carrier wanted the Rudd government to replicate Singapore’s stance on air rights here and ”fulfil its obligations to the Singaporean carrier”.

”It’s just a matter of principle. I don’t think the Australian Government can say that Singapore has not provided Australian carriers maximum access,” Mr Menon said. ”We hope that it will not be too long into the future before Singapore would be allowed to fly under fifth freedom rights out of Australia and the US.”

The aviation white paper, released in December, made it clear that the federal government did not intend to open up the trans-Pacific route any time soon. It wants to allow Virgin Blue’s fledging long-haul offshoot, V Australia, to establish itself before allowing foreign airlines to fly the route.

The government has also made clear that the trans-Pacific will be opened up only in return for other countries granting Australian carriers greater access to other profitable routes.

Singapore Airlines has previously urged the government to reveal a timeframe for access to the trans-Pacific, saying that the white paper merely articulated what has been said previously.

After a three-year search, Jetstar settled on Singapore’s Changi Airport in January as its hub for flights in Asia and as its launch pad for services to Europe.

The expansion in Singapore is likely to mean it will boost its maintenance operations and cabin-crew base there over coming years.