History of Singapore Airlines

History

Singapore Airlines, one of the best airlines in the world, began with the incorporation of Malayan Airways on May 1st, 1947. This incorporation was made by the Ocean Steamship Company of Liverpool, the Straits Steamship Company of Singapore and Imperial Airways. On April 2nd, 1947, a Malayan Airways flight was chartered by five businessmen from Singapore’s Kallang Airport to Kuala Lumpur, and the flight was made using an Airspeed Consul twin- engine aircraft. After this chartered flight, on May 1st, 1947, the same aircraft type realized three weekly schedules flights from Singapore Kallang Airport to Kuala Lumpur and the states Penang and Ipoh.

Malayan Airways continued its expansion during the end of the 1940s and the rest of the 1950s. Its expansion included the acquisition of more planes and the addition of more routes. During this time, British airlines and Qantas Empire Airways provided technical assistance, as well the support in joining IATA. By the year of 1955, the fleet of Malayan Airways had grown including a large number of Douglas DC-3s, and the company went public in 1957. The incorporation of more DC-3s meant that flights would be more comfortable and faster, and services were expanded to new destinations such as Indonesia, Vietnam, Burma (now Myanmar), North Borneo (Sabah) and Sarawak. In addition, inflight refreshments were improved by adding sandwiches, biscuits and a choice of hot and cold drinks. Nevertheless, when Malaya, Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak formed the Federation of Malaysia, in September 1963, the airline changed its name to Malaysian Airways.

In the view of political developments, and after Singapore separated from the Federation, the airline changed its name again in May 1966; this time t...

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...ancial crisis, when frequencies had to be reduced and promotions had to be offered in response to a sudden drop in demand, it is virtually impossible to make money on the routes. Eliminating the flights and phasing out the A340-500s should instantly improve the profitability of SIA’s long-haul operation.

Newark has been served daily since Jan-2010, ending a period of about a year in which the service was only operated with five weekly frequencies. The Los Angeles-Singapore service was restored to daily in late 2010 but was cut back to five weekly flights in May-2011 and has since stayed at that level. Both services were initially offered in a two-class configuration with premium economy and business but SIA opted to reconfigure its A340s in 2008 to all-business after discovering it could not make money on such long flights with an economy or premium economy product.