First there was the Scandinavia-Thailand route, with Norwegian Air - which serves Bangkok from Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm; then Cologne-Bangkok and Cologne-Phuket with Germany's Eurowings. Next year, it will be the turn of Scoot, a subsidiary of Singapore Airlines, to take the plunge and land in Athens.
Lee Lik Hsin, CEO of Budget Aviation Holdings - the umbrella company for SIA's low-cost division - told Singapore's leading daily Straits Times that the long-haul hybrid carrier should also include a second destination in Europe. An announcement to this effect will be made before the end of the year. Among the possible candidates, Scoot is looking very closely at Barcelona and Madrid, Rome, as well as Manchester in the UK, the latter cities already being served by Singapore Airlines.
The Singapore-Athens route will be operated four times a week from June 2017 by Boeing 787, an ideally configured aircraft with economy class capacity ranging from 280 to 295 seats, while ScootBiz seats vary from 21 to 35. The airline also wants to develop its transfer business, notably to Australia, but also to Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.
For its part, AirAsia X, a subsidiary of the low-cost AirAsia group, is fine-tuning its strategy for Europe. AirAsia X was the de facto low-cost operator of record a few years ago with the launch of routes to London and Paris Orly. The flights proved unprofitable, not least because of the choice of aircraft - an Airbus A340 - and were eventually cancelled in 2012. Recently, the group's CEO, the charismatic Tony Fernandes, indicated that the delivery of Airbus A330 Neo - a fuel-efficient aircraft - would enable AAX to return to Europe, probably starting with London.
AirAsiaX would benefit in particular from the void left by Malaysia Airlines, which had to abandon all its European stopovers (Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Paris) following its recovery plan, leaving only its London service. AirAsia X would be a good alternative, offering a real 'sleeperette' business seat. The Airbus A330Neo will be delivered to AirAsia X in early 2018.
For its part, Eurowings has indicated that this winter it will be adding an extra frequency on the Cologne/Bangkok and Cologne/Phuket routes, bringing the total to six weekly frequencies to the Kingdom of Thailand.
