After June 2019, There’ll Be No More Scoot Flights To These Four Cities Temporarily

If you’re looking to take Scoot to any of these four cities, I have some bad news for you.

From late June onwards, Scoot will be suspending all flights to the following cities:

• Lucknow, India
• Kalibo, the Philippines
• Quanzhou, China
• Male, Maldives

In a press release on Monday (29 April 2019), Scoot announced that they would be suspending flights to these four cities due to the combination of weak demand and shortage of aircraft.

The suspensions for Lucknow and Kalibo will start from end-June, while August for Quanzhou and October for Male.

Affected Customers Contacted

Currently, Scoot has flights to these four cities weekly.

There are three flights to Lucknow, Kalibo and Quanzhou, and four to Male.

The last flights to these cities are as listed below but are subjected to regulatory approvals.

Affected customers were also contacted by Scoot and offered different alternatives.

The first was to rebook their flight at no additional cost to the same destinations before the suspension. The second was to rebook their flight at no additional cost to other Scoot destinations within the same country.

The third and fourth were to obtain refunds either through their original mode of payment or a Scoot Travel Voucher.

Refunds are 100% and 120% respectively.

Reasons for Suspension

The aircraft shortage rose after SilkAir’s grounding of its Boeing 737 Max 8 fleet. Originally, it was announced in November of last year that SilkAir would transfer its Boeing 737- 800NG aircraft to Scoot in the financial year of 2019/2020.

The transfer of the fleet from SilkAir to Scoot was to allow them to compete more effectively against other low-cost rivals like AirAsia.

However, life happens. Things happen.

Grounding of Airplanes

In March this year, it was announced that all Boeing 737 Max planes in Singapore were to be grounded after two fatal accidents involving the said aircraft.

On the same day, the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) suspended all Boeing 737 Max operations in and out of Singapore temporarily. During the suspension, they will gather more information and review the safety risks of the aircraft.

This move came after a Boeing 737 Max 8 crashed in Ethiopia, killing all 157 onboard in the same month. While in October of last year, a 737 Max 8 operated by Lion Air crashed into the Java Sea, killing 189.

SilkAir also confirmed that all six of its Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft were grounded, and will not return to service until further notice.

Hence, they couldn’t transfer the Boeing 737-800NG aircraft since they needed it for themselves.

Sorry, Scoot. 

2018 really wasn’t a good year for them after their flight delays which affected many as well.

17 Route Transfer

Despite the suspension of flights to those four cities, Scoot will continue to take up the 17 routes that were transferred from SilkAir. Subjected to regulatory approvals, the 17 routes are:

• Luang Prabang and Vientiane in Laos, in April 2019
• Coimbatore, Trivandrum and Visakhapatnam in India, between May 2019 and October 2019
• Changsha, Fuzhou, Kunming and Wuhan in China, between May 2019 and June 2019
• Chiang Mai in Thailand, in October 2019
• Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia, in December 2019
• Balikpapan, Lombok, Makassar, Manado, Semarang and Yogyakarta in Indonesia, between May 2020 and July 2020