Singapore's Valuair is seeking widebody aircraft to operate longer-haul services as it looks to ramp up its operations and more than double the number of routes served over the next year.
Chief executive Sim Kay Wee told Flight International's sister publication Airline Business that "we would like to expand a little faster", but the airline has been held back in part by a lack of available traffic rights to destinations within a few hours of Singapore.
Sim says the all-Airbus A320 operator is "seriously evaluating the [widebody] equipment" for longer-haul services and he hopes Valuair will be flying to destinations within a 7-8h range of Singapore by the end of the year. Destinations under consideration include those in eastern Australia, northern China, India and Japan. "We hope to have [widebody aircraft] by the end of this [financial] year," Sim says, adding that he sees the airline serving "easily six more" destinations by then.
Privately-owned Valuair launched services in May last year as the first Singapore-based scheduled airline that is not part of the Singapore Airlines (SIA) group. It operates three A320s to Bangkok, Hong Kong, Jakarta and Perth in Australia, and Sim says services to two destinations in China that he will not identify are set to be launched next month. A fourth leased A320 is due to enter service shortly.
NICHOLAS IONIDES / SINGAPORE
Source: Flight International
