Daily Briefing: SIA, Scoot to cut capacity on China-bound flights; Travel agencies suspend trips to China

And Singapore’s Professional Conversion programme extends training to 1,000 more PMETs.

From Channel News Asia:

Singapore Airlines (SIA) announced on Friday that it will reduce capacity on some of its routes to mainland China in February due to the growing scale of the coronavirus epidemic.

The cuts include flights to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. Flights slated for Chengdu, Xiamen and Chongqing, some of which are flown by its regional arm will also see reduction in capacity, it said on its Facebook page.

SIA's low-cost carrier Scoot also announced that it will suspend flights to 11 cities in China from early February until the end of March and will reduce frequencies to eight other Chinese destinations.

Scoot will suspend flights between Singapore and China regions, namely Harbin, Hangzhou, Shenyang, and Xi’an as well as Changsha, Nanchang, Zhengzhou, and Ningbo. Flights to Jinan, Nanning and Wuxi will also be on suspension, said the carrier on Facebook.

Read more here. 

From Channel News Asia:

Travel agencies in Singapore have seen cancellations on holiday bookings made for China amidst the Coronavirus, leading some to suspend all tours to the country for the coming weeks.

Dynasty Travel said about 200 travellers who have made bookings to visit China in February and March, have postponed trips.

At EU Holidays, all tours to China starting from Jan 26 until the end of March have been cancelled amidst rising concerns of customers.

Likewise, Chan Brothers Travel told CNA that it will be progressively suspending China-bound tours with departures until 29 February 2020.

Read more here. 

From Human Resources Online:

Workforce Singapore (WSG) and the Semiconductor Industry Association (SSIA) have increased the training capacity of the Professional Conversion Programmes (PCP) for. The expansion of the program is aimed at preparing the electronics industry for manpower changes and growth in the future.

This new extended programme is expected to benefit an additional 1,000 professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) in the industry, over the next three and a half years from November 2019, in two programmes - the PCP for Electronics Engineer, and the PCP for Electronics Assistant Engineer.
As a start, the programme will admit 50 rank and file jobseekers.

Read more here.