Singapore Airlines denies report its budget long-haul carrier is ready for take-off in April

All other information mentioned by Straits Times like number of aircrafts planned to operate were also rebuffed.

“We're still in the initial set up of our operations and still working on building up the airline. As a new airline, we're expectedly exploring various arrangements, but nothing has been firmed to date,” Audrey Tan of SIA’s unit New Aviation said in an e-mail reply to Singapore Business Review.

“We don't have definite schedule of first flight yet as everything are still in the planning stage. We don’t confirm anything mentioned in the report.” she said meanwhile over the phone.

The report from Straits Times read:

Singapore Airlines’ new low-cost, long-haul carrier is slated to take off in April next year with one Boeing 777-200 and expand to four planes in the first three months.

The longer-term plan is for Scoot Airlines, as the new entity could be called, to operate 14 of the twin-aisle planes by the middle of 2016, The Straits Times has learnt.

Regional carrier SilkAir, another SIA subsidiary, has a fleet of 18 aircraft.

The new airline, a critical part of SIA’s strategy to deal with intensifying competition from rival carriers, is expected to fit each of its B-777 with about 400 seats.

SIA, which will provide the initial few aircraft from its existing fleet, currently configures its B-777 to carry up to 323 passengers in two classes.

The Straits Times has also found out that as part of the retrofitting, the new carrier intends to make its aircraft Wi-Fi enabled.

This will allow passengers, willing to pay for the service, to surf the Internet and access Web-based applications using laptops, tablet computers and smartphones.

The airline is also studying the feasibility of renting the devices for inflight entertainment. Charging customers for extras, which also include food and drinks, is part of the low-cost model adopted for the new carrier.
 

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