SINGAPORE — When Scoot launches its flights to Perth tomorrow, it will be adding a destination to its network that is already extremely well-served by numerous full-service and low-cost airlines.

But Chief Executive Campbell Wilson is confident the medium-haul budget airline will be able to make money on the route and without poaching too many passengers from its sister carriers, Singapore Airlines and Tigerair, which already fly to the Western Australian city.

“If you look at what happened with Sydney, we expanded traffic to what was already a very well-served destination before we started our service there,” Mr Wilson said in a recent interview with TODAY.

“In the 12 months before we started flying to Sydney, the number of Singaporeans flying there declined by about 1 per cent. In the six months since Scoot started flying there, we increased the number of Singaporeans arriving there by 33 per cent,” he said, citing data from Australia’s statistics bureau. Scoot, which currently serves 13 destinations in Asia and Australia, launched its first flight from Singapore to Sydney in June last year.

Mr Wilson acknowledged that while Perth may not offer as much potential to expand a route because, unlike Sydney, it already has a low-cost presence with Tigerair and Jetstar, the expectation is that Scoot will be able to attract new passengers.

That assessment was a key factor in deciding whether it would be a viable destination for Scoot without it having to cannibalise passengers from other carriers in the Singapore Airlines family, said Mr Wilson. Scoot will be offering five flights a week to the city, compared with Tigerair’s 14 weekly flights and Singapore Airlines’ 28.

A group-level committee assessed the likely overall impact of Scoot flying to Perth, and “the pros and cons of cannibalisation versus growth were considered, and it was deemed that there was a sufficiently strong business case for us to fly there”.

In a recent report, the Centre for Aviation agreed with that view, saying that “the local Singapore-Perth market should be large enough to enable high load factors on (Scoot’s) 400-seat aircraft, particularly if Scoot is able to stimulate the market by using its seat cost advantage to bring in lower fares.”

But Mr Wilson said Scoot will not just be focusing on ticket prices to win business, even though operating a wide-body jet on a low-cost basis provides the airline with a financial model to compete aggressively in that area.

“It’s not just about prices, it’s more about the overall product proposition. For example, the wide-bodied Boeing 777 that Scoot flies is much more spacious than, say, the Airbus 320 that other low-cost carriers use. And our galleys are more spacious so we offer more meal choices.”

Nevertheless, customers travelling on low-cost carriers are guided to a large extent by price, which means that Scoot will still need to offer eye-catching, competitive deals to the destination to avoid being muscled out of the market by its rivals, Mr Wilson said.

Once the Perth route is launched, Scoot will have to wait until it starts taking delivery of its new Boeing 787s next year before it can add any more destinations to its network because its current fleet of B777s will be fully utilised. While that may mean that the airline misses out on the opportunity to use the launch of new routes as a marketing tool, Mr Wilson said a period of consolidation will be welcome after the airline’s “breakneck” pace of initial growth.

“Our systems, processes, efficiencies and general organisational robustness need to be embedded,” said Mr Wilson. “The beginning (for Scoot) has ended. So how do we now establish ourselves to move forward? A lot of that is asking how can we keep ourselves in the news and keep ourselves relevant, and do things better rather than good enough.”

Despite the period of consolidation that is on the cards, planning is already underway for the arrival of Scoot’s first B787s.

Mr Wilson said that customers will not notice much of a difference from its existing aircraft in terms of in-flight experience, but the state-of-the-art planes will open up new low-cost routes for travellers from Singapore.

“The 787s are a bit smaller than the 777s and much more fuel efficient. This will give us the flexibility to break free from flying to big cities and will allow us to open up new markets.”