Guy Betsy

Yep. According to a FA friend who heard it from a senior pilot, Scoot will start flying to HNL via KIX. Competing directly with Air Asia.

lokijuh

Discussed in Straits Times and other media a few weeks ago, and it seems waiting for approval from US. So it seems your source is accurate.

Mlee888

The FA on my flight going to London few weeks back said exactly the same thing to me. Told me the current discussion is what route the Scoot flight will take, undecided if it will stop off in HND along the way.

SQ319

http://www.straitstimes.com/singapor...ii-by-year-end

It will stop in KIX, not HND.

garykung

Another destined to fail route...

lokijuh

Just curious, what leads you to that conclusion? From SIN the fares to HNL are quite expensive so room there, and I assume it will be non stop to KIX - currently no non-stop LCC services to KIX, IIRC they go via elsewhere.

garykung

1. Hawaii is a mature market for Japanese visitors. Only less than 40% of Japanese visitors are first-time visitors. 60% of Japanese visitors came from Kanto region (including Tokyo) and about 20% came from Kansei/Kinki (the population ratio between Kanto and Kansei is 2:1).

Almost 70% of visits by Japanese visitors are prearranged. Only 7% are independent visitors from Kansei/Kinki.

In that case, both AirAsia and Scoot (if finalized) are competing for the 7%, unless AirAsia and/or Scoot will work with prearranged vendors.

2. Believe it or not, Guam is a major competitor with Hawaii, which has many advantages over Hawaii.

3. The emerging market for Guam/CNMI/Hawaii is Mainland China.

Bottom line - AirAsia can operate KUL-KIX-HNL and Scoot can operate SIN-KIX/NRT/HND-HNL as they want. Simply they won't attract as much traffic as they anticipate.

My 2 cents - it is more practical if Scoot can operate SIN-HKG-HNL. This route will definitely be a cash cow.

lokijuh

I was more thinking about from an ex-SIN perspective. Given they routinely charging $180 as base fares to Australia, if they charge say $450 as base fares to HNL they could well be OK. I've looked at ex-SIN fares to HNL a few times, always cheaper to go to SFO or NYC than HNL .... but if they are heavily dependent on the ex-KIX market it would seem difficult ...

garykung

Based on the same data set, only less than 5k of Singaporean visitors visited Hawaii v. more than 1 million of Japanese visitors.

I seriously doubt that Scoot's customer focus for SIN-NRT/HND/KIX-HNL route is on Singapore.

It has to be Japan for sure.

Don't forget - the range for B788 and B789 allows Scoot to do SIN-HNL nonstop. If the demand from SEA justifies, why bother a one-stop in Japan?

msp3

Just booked a one-way to KIX with absolutely no options whatsoever. How much pain and suffering am I in for? Booked F elsewhere on the way back so I don't go insane...

wolfpacktrojan

The number of Japanese visiting Guam has been dwindling for a few years now, and I don't really see it going back to how it was. I think 2017's visitor number is about 1/3 of what it was in 2013. Delta pulled out of Guam completely and United has reduced frequencies. Guam's main source of tourists is now South Korea.

JAL recently added a second daily flight to GUM, but I'm pretty sure it's highly subsidized by Guam. I can't imagine it's going to succeed the way things are going. I used to fly NRT-GUM on JAL 747s back in the late '90s and early 2000s and they were full every time. I personally love Guam, but I think Japanese people have just gotten tired of going there over the years.

garykung

While we can agree to disagree...

This is definitely not true. If Guam has to subsidize a flight, it would have been a domestic flight to, at the minimum, HNL. UA's GUM-HNL has been criticized for years, still because of its monopoly, passengers are forced to take it. To Guam, opening that market would serve better than an international flight bringing more tourists.

wolfpacktrojan

https://www.postguam.com/business/ja...5643f944d.html

"GVB [Guam Visitor's Bureau] is asking for a $2 million spending authorization to subsidize flights from Japan in fiscal year 2019."

Guam is desperate for Japanese tourists, so they are obviously going to do whatever they can to increase those numbers. They are getting creative, even getting J-pop group AKB48 to do shows in Guam.

What advantages were you specifically speaking to that Guam has over Hawaii?

msp3