Singapore Airlines ends Houston flights via Manchester

Singapore Airlines has stopped flying to Houston George Bush Intercontinental Airport. The Star Alliance carrier ended its last service to the Texas hub in March 2025.

The airline's history with Houston was defined by one-stop flights use fifth-freedom traffic rights. Initially, the route from Singapore Changi Airport operated via Moscow Domodedovo Airport starting in 2006. The carrier switched the intermediate stop to Manchester Airport in 2016, a routing it maintained until the service's termination.

A Route Built on Energy Traffic

The original flight via Moscow was established to capture energy-related travel demand. Singapore Airlines used the Boeing 777-300ER on the route, which for a time held the record for the world's longest one-stop flight. The service uniquely connected three major energy hubs: Singapore, Moscow, and Houston.

It operated as a fifth-freedom flight, allowing the airline to carry local passengers between Moscow and Houston in addition to those traveling from Singapore. The airline was the only carrier offering nonstop flights between Singapore and Moscow during this period.

The Shift to Manchester

In 2016, Singapore Airlines moved the intermediate stop from Moscow to Manchester. The decision followed a decline in demand linked to a struggling Russian ruble. The carrier initially used the Boeing 777-300ER on the new routing before switching to the Airbus A350-900 from January 2017.

The Manchester stop aimed to tap into the Northern England and UK market, where no other airline offered a direct service to Houston. Passengers would sometimes connect from Scotland via Loganair flights into Manchester for onward travel to Texas.

Load factors on the Manchester-to-Houston leg were reportedly low, ultimately leading to the route's cancellation. Some flights sold only 30% full.

Singapore Airlines' Current US Network

With the Houston service ended, Singapore Airlines now serves just five cities in the United States. Data from aviation analytics company Cirium shows New York City and Los Angeles are its largest US markets by number of departures.

The airline previously served Seattle-Tacoma International Airport via a one-stop routing through Vancouver International Airport between 2021 and 2023. Its experiment with that Canadian connection lasted two years.