Singapore Airlines

Singapore Airlines (SIA) started non-stop flights between Singapore and Amritsar thrice weekly on 1 October 2004. On the inaugural flight from Singapore to Amritsar were over a dozen business leaders and government officials from Singapore as well as nine members of the press from Singapore, Southeast Asia and Australasia.
Amritsar is the seventh destination in India to be served by SIA. Before the introduction of direct flight,the air travellers either had to take a domestic flight to Delhi or, the more common pattern, a five-and-a-half-hour express train ride. Now all it takes is a six-hour plane journey to get from Amritsar to Singapore!
As the spiritual centre of the Sikh faith and culture, and famous worldwide for the magnificent Golden Temple, Amritsar is a tourism magnet. But as part of the rapidly developing state of Punjab , there is also enormous two-way business potential. According to a newspaper survey in August 2004, Punjab is the top investment destination and has the best infrastructure.In a media interview the Punjab Tourism Minister Mr Jagmohan Singh Khan said that the purchasing power in Amritsar is one-and-a-half times the national average.
In a news release issued in India the SIA said referring to the new service: “It offers great opportunities for the dispersion of Punjabi from countries as far as Canada, USA, Australia and New Zealand, and facilitates leisure traffic development between Punjab and Southeast-Asia as well as North Asia .”
SIA Senior Vice-President West Asia & Africa , Mr Tan Chik Quee, who led the delegation, said: “The greater accessibility to Amritsar will enhance the city’s position as the gateway to the surrounding states of Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan. More importantly, it will facilitate the growth and development of business and tourism in Punjab itself.
“The service presented to Indians who originate from Punjab but are residing elsewhere in Asia-Pacific, Australasia and North America, a direct travel option to visit friends and family here. Conversely, for Punjab residents, this flight offers a six-hour, non-stop service to Singapore where they can easily connect to any major city in the world on Singapore Airlines’ extensive network.”
Mr B K Ong, SIA’s General Manager India, added: “Since we began operations to India in 1970, we have taken every opportunity to grow our links with the country.” He acknowledged the important role played by the Punjab state government, civil aviation and Amritsar city officials who gave full support and cooperation in the launch of direct flights. SIA is the first major international airline, apart from Air India , to service at Amritsar.
With the launch of the thrice-weekly Amritsar flights, the total number of passenger services operated by SIA is 38 weekly flights to India. It has 12 flights to Mumbai, daily flights each to Delhi and Chennai, and three flights each to Bangalore, Kolkata and Ahmedabad. In addition, SIA subsidiary SilkAir operates 11 flights each week to the cities of Hyderabad (four flights), Kochi (four) and Thiruvananthapuram (three).
This combined network of 10 cities across India with a total of 49 non-stop flights a week to and from Singapore gives the two Singapore carriers a very strong product in the international and domestic Indian market. Both SIA and the business community in Singapore and India are using this advantage to tap opportunities in various economic sectors. Besides travellers from India and Singapore, the wide spread of flights also benefits Singapore as a connection point for east-west traffic. This fact was not lost on the Singapore airport authority: transit passengers in Terminal 2 on 1 October afternoon were pleasantly surprised to be handed A5-size notebooks from Singapore Changi Airport , “celebrating the launch of Singapore Airlines’ direct service to Amritsar ”.


SINGAPORE AIRLINES OPERATES SERVICE TO AMRITSAR-TOURISM BOOST AND BUSINESS LINKS WITH NORTHERN INDIA