The deal forms part of SIA's announcement today that it is ordering five additional A380s and 20 A350-900s. This will bring the numbers of A380 operating by the airline to a total of 24.
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The airline says its decision to retire the A340s is in line with its "policy to maintain a young fleet". However industry sources say the nonstop services between Singapore and the USA continued to fall short of revenue expectations, despite the airline switching to an all-business class cabin layout in an effort to boost yields.
SIA says the removal of the A340s means it will no longer have an aircraft type in its fleet with "sufficient range and operating economics" to serve the USA nonstop.
"Although disappointing that we will be halting these services, we remain very committed to the US market," says SIA chief executive Goh Choon Phong. "Over the past two years we have increased capacity to both Los Angeles and New York by deploying A380 superjumbos on flights via Tokyo and Frankfurt. We will also continue to explore additional options to enhance our US services," he adds.
With its additional Airbus orders announced today, SIA will have outstanding firm purchase or lease orders in place with Airbus and Boeing for 68 widebody aircraft, including 15 A330-300s and eight 777-300ERs ordered last year.
SIA is meanwhile transferring its order for 20 787-9s to low-cost subsidiary Scoot. Regional arm SilkAir has commitments for 54 Boeing 737s, including 31 of the re-engined 737 Max. Deliveries will start in 2014, said Scoot, which started operations in June. The fuel-efficient new aircraft will replace Scoot's fleet of Boeing 777-200s, it added. Scoot currently operates no-frills flights from Singapore to Sydney, the Gold Coast, Bangkok, Taipei and Tianjin in China.
Services to Tokyo will start on October 29 followed by flights to the Chinese cities of Shenyang and Qingdao in November.
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