SQ's "Special/Unique/Extra" service SQ220

[MathNerd]

It appears that yearly, on the first Sunday in April when VIC changes to AEST from AEDST, there's an extra flight that SQ runs from MEL to SIN, numbered SQ220. This flight, as far as I can tell, only runs once a year.

What's funny/interesting is that this flight is timed at 23:35 (so just before midnight), and then the following day the SQ218 service (which would have had the same timeslot at 23:35) is now shifted to 00:35 (so an hour later, taking it into Monday), and this continues until October (but no extra flight at this time when switching back to AEDST). Both SQ220 and SQ218 have an ETA of 05:30 in SIN, however their flight times are both slotted in at 07hrs 55mins (even though their departures are 60 mins apart):


I'm just imagining check-in at MEL for both of these - it's already a zoo with the kiosks, and adding in inexperienced pax who will inevitably try and check in for the alternative flight, or join the boarding queue for the other. Will there be 2 separate check-in areas, one for each flight? Most pax for either flight I imagine would turn up on the Sunday night around 2100 or 2200 hrs.

Has anyone taken this unique flight and can share their experiences with it? I would hope it's not a phantom/ghost flight, but imagining 2 SQ A359s lining up one behind each other ready to touch down at SIN, after having from MEL pretty much in lock step with one another, is quite the funny sight I'd imagine.

And yup, it's been a slow news day, haha.

Cheers

 

[Mattg]

It's not really an extra flight, though. When daylight savings ends, the regular 00:35 departure time from MEL of SQ218 becomes 23:35. This change happens on the first Sunday of April each year. So, the 00:35 departure from MEL on that day is effectively the Saturday night departure and the 23:35 is Sunday night. The next SQ218 isn't until Monday night. There must also be a day in October with no SQ218 for the opposite reason.

Because on that particular day there are technically two of the "same" flight departing on the same calendar day, one gets a different flight number.

 

[serfty]

So are.there two services or.just one?

 

[wenglock.mok]

So are.there two services or.just one?

Just one.

This is not a sixth daily service but an oddity of daylight savings ending in April 2025. Essentially, instead of a 24-hour gap between the midnight MEL-SIN services, there will be a 23-hour gap on the last day of daylight savings, which necessitates re-numbering one of the flights.

 

[MathNerd]

Very interesting, thanks @Mattg and @wenglock.mok for your insights.

So if a pax has a booking that contains SQ220 in it, I'd imagine they'd be quite confused when they get to the airport and don't see SQ220 on any of the info boards etc. Of course you'd then just go and line up at the regular SQ check-in area to find out what's going on, but you'd hope either MEL ops or SQ themselves would have some sort of info about this and the fact that there's 2 flight numbers for the same flight.

I wonder what this means for award availability/fare buckets for these - does SQ218 and SQ220 appear as separate line items in the GDS with their own different parameters?

I've never flown around a DST change (and even more crucially within an hour or two of the actual change occurring), so this is all new to me - very interesting though, regardless!

I may or may not be booked on SQ220 next year, which is why this thread has been created - will leave you to decide