Adanh -- this is very important as with the evolution of the US relationship with China -- Tokyo and Seoul will become increasingly important
It would be nice if Singapore Airlines could get us a flight
Singapore would be great but non-stop simply isn't viable right now...maybe by 2040. The only thing a BOS-SIN flight serves is SE Asia and a flight to SIN sort of overflies many destinations there (Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand)
Historically - Singapore has used their former ownership with Virgin Atlantic to grab Boston Traffic with the codeshare via London-Heathrow.
Today - not much has changed on that stance and in fact there are more options with this per increased service with the Daytime Heathrow flight.
I checked Singapore's site and they tend to still prefer you go through Heathrow along with feeding the JFK Frankfurt and/or the J-Class EWR flight via JetBlue. Unfortunately, some of layovers can be tight in Heathrow - I wouldn't do 1hr 15 min there. I know Turkish/Lufthansa has a codeshare too and Alaska is feeding the Seattle flight but nothing compares to the Heathrow options.
They have some options for Boston due to JetBlue relationship.
- Fifth freedom to Heathrow - probably too late and expensive slot-wise to do this. They would have to be really confident they could grab business fares (J).
- Fifth freedom to Geneva - J- traffic is there, partner feed potential (Swiss but not sure about their cooperation - Singapore seems to only allow high-fare economy to connect with Lufthansa), but Geneva is not high-volume to BOS or USA in general.
- Fifth freedom to Athens - volume is there, partner feed is there (Aegean), but J traffic isn't
- Fifth freedom to Brussels - somewhat larger market and probably hidden is size due to train access from Amsterdam, some J fares, partner is there as well.
I would love to see the Boston-Geneva-Singapore routing happen but there's another major factor: Emirates, Qatar, Korean, Cathay Pacific (issues in HK could help Singapore find an opening), possible increased Japan service and increased European service may have squeezed Singapore out.