SilkAir

The airline had its roots as a regional air-charter company as Tradewinds formed in 1975, serving leisure destinations using planes predominantly leased from parent airline Singapore Airlines. Scheduled services were introduced as Tradewinds Airlines on 21 February 1989, when it leased McDonnell Douglas MD-87 aeroplanes for services to 5 destinations: Pattaya, Phuket, Hat Yai, and Kuantan from Singapore's Changi Airport, and Tioman from Singapore's Seletar Airport. As the carrier matured, regional business destinations such as Jakarta, Phnom Penh, and Yangon were added to its network, thereby broadening the airline's appeal beyond the holiday-maker to include the business traveller.

A major marketing overhaul was started in 1991, culminating on 1 April 1992, by giving the airline its present name and logo as a new corporate identity. The re-branded airline utilised up to six of the new Boeing 737-300s introduced just a year earlier. The mid-1990s saw two Airbus A310-200 aircraft in use and the expansion of services to India as well as mainland China. It was the first Asian carrier to offer handheld portable video-on-demand (VOD) in-flight entertainment in the form of the DigEplayer 5500, available on flights to selected countries.

On 10 April 2015, SilkAir launched a new collection of uniforms, the fourth uniform change in over 26 years. There are two variations of the uniform - aqua-blue for junior crew and a plum-red version for senior crew. Both variations are accompanied by a dark blue skirt. For the year ending 31 March 2015, the airline flew over 3.5 million passengers and made an operating profit of S$40.8 million. SilkAir announced the appointment of Foo Chai Woo as Chief Executive as of 18 May 2016, succeeding Mr Leslie Thng.

On 29 October 2017, SilkAir took over Scoot's services to Yangon. With the transfer, the airline boosted its Yangon operations to 15 non-stop services a week. On 30 October 2017, SilkAir launched its inaugural flight to Hiroshima, marking the first Japanese destination that SilkAir has added to its network. On 22 November 2018, SilkAir announced plans to transfer 17 routes to Scoot including Luang Prabang, Chiang Mai, Kota Kinabalu, Yogyakarta and Wuhan over the months of April 2019 to July 2020, ahead of its merger with Singapore Airlines in the late 2020 or early 2021.

By the end of 2021, SilkAir had ceased operations and gradually finished integration into its parent company, Singapore Airlines.

Destinations

At the end of April 2021, SilkAir's network covered three destinations – Cebu, Kathmandu and Singapore.

Codeshare agreements

SilkAir had codeshare agreements with the following airlines:

Fleet

Throughout its existence, SilkAir operated the following aircraft:

Fleet development

SilkAir began operations with one leased McDonnell Douglas MD-87 aircraft in 1989, before investing in its own fleet of six Boeing 737-300s, the first of which began operations in 1990. It operated two Airbus A310-200s for a brief period from 1993 to 1995 before they were transferred to Singapore Airlines, and two Fokker 70s from 1995 to 2000. It began replacing its Boeing fleet with Airbus aircraft when the first Airbus A320-200 arrived on 18 September 1998, and retired all Boeing aircraft a year later. Soon after its first A320 was delivered, SilkAir took delivery of its first A319-100 aircraft on 3 September 1999. The A319 was utilised on certain routes within Southeast Asia, and to some cities in India, while the larger A320 was used on most of the airline's major routes. On 20 December 2006, SilkAir signed an agreement to purchase 11 Airbus A320-200 aircraft with nine more on option. These aircraft were delivered between 2009–2012.

Accidents and incidents

SilkAir Flight 185

On 19 December 1997, SilkAir Flight 185 registered as 9V-TRF, operated on a Boeing 737-300 and piloted by Captain Tsu Way Ming, plunged into the Musi River in Palembang, South Sumatra during a routine flight from Jakarta, Soekarno Hatta International Airport CGK to Singapore, Changi Airport, killing all 104 people on board. The crash was investigated by various groups, with different results. The Indonesian NTSC, who were lead investigators, stated that they were unable to determine the cause, while the U.S. NTSB concluded that the crash resulted from an intentional act by a pilot, most likely the captain. A civil lawsuit case against Parker Hannifin, the manufacturer of the PCU-dual servo unit essential in the 737's rudder control—and also suspected in causing the crashes of United Airlines Flight 585 and USAir Flight 427 under similar flight-event parameters, had provided the NTSB the initial test results of the recovered PCU-dual servo unit from Flight 185 in 1997, but was later further independently investigated for litigation on behalf some families of Flight 185 passengers in a civil lawsuit against Parker Hannifin. The jury under the Superior Court in Los Angeles in 2004, which was not allowed to hear or consider the NTSB conclusions, decided that the crash was caused by a prominent issue inherent in other 737 crashes: a defective servo valve inside the Power Control Unit (PCU) which controls the aircraft's rudder, causing a rudder hard-over and a subsequent uncontrollable crash. The manufacturer of the aircraft's rudder controls and the families later reached an out of court settlement. It is the only fatal hull loss for SilkAir in its history.