SCAT Airlines Adds Shymkent–Singapore Route via Sanya

SHYMKENT, KAZAKHSTAN — SCAT Airlines (DV) will begin scheduled service between Shymkent International Airport (CIT) and Singapore Changi Airport (SIN) on October 20, routing through Sanya Phoenix International Airport (SYX) on Hainan Island in China. The carrier opened ticket sales for the Shymkent–Singapore route when it announced the service on September 7.

Two round trips a week are planned, flown by a Boeing 737 MAX 8 under flight numbers DV777 outbound and DV778 on the return, according to schedule data published for the Northern winter 2026/27 season. The itinerary is possible because Singapore and Kazakhstan widened their traffic rights two years ago.

How the Sanya Stop Works

The service is direct rather than nonstop. It runs under one flight number from Shymkent to Singapore but makes an intermediate landing in Sanya, where a nonstop flight would make none. Passengers stay with the service instead of connecting to a separate flight, and the schedule listing shows a single aircraft type across both sectors.

Singapore-bound passengers remain inside Sanya's sterile transit area and do not clear Chinese passport control, The Astana Times reported, citing the airline. The same report put the Shymkent–Sanya leg at about six and a half hours, the Sanya–Singapore leg at close to three hours, and the transit at roughly two hours.

The 2024 Agreement Behind the Routing

Kazakhstan did not hold the rights this itinerary needs until October 2024. The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) said it had upgraded its air services agreement with Kazakhstan at the International Civil Aviation Organization's Air Services Negotiation Event in Kuala Lumpur that month, allowing airlines of both countries "to carry passengers and cargo via any intermediate points and to any beyond points between the two countries, without restrictions on aircraft type, capacity and routing." The regulator said the previous agreement "only allows the airlines to carry passengers and cargo between the two countries."

An intermediate point in a third country is precisely what that upgrade added. At the time, CAAS listed Kazakhstan among countries Singapore "does not have direct flights with," and said the new agreements "put in place the enabling conditions for their airlines to mount flights when they are ready."

SCAT's Other Long Single-Aisle Route

Singapore is the second long route SCAT has built around an intermediate stop. The airline already flies Prague–Sanya twice a week with a 737 MAX 9, and AeroRoutes reported that the intermediate point on that service has moved from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, to Samarkand, Uzbekistan, since September 6.

Boeing called the Prague service "a landmark Prague-Sanya service, connecting the Czech Republic and China with a technical stop in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan" in April 2026, and put the journey at more than 14 hours. The manufacturer said SCAT was the first airline in Central Asia to fly the 737 MAX, and that the carrier would use a larger 737-9 fleet to "operate long-haul flights from Kazakhstan and pioneer seventh-freedom routes from Central Asia across Europe and Asia." Singapore is assigned the 737 MAX 8, the smaller of the two 737 MAX variants in the fleet.

The order behind those plans became public that same month, when Boeing disclosed that a previously unidentified firm order for five 737-9s belonged to SCAT, and that the airline had converted five 737-8s from an earlier order to the larger variant. Boeing put the carrier's in-service fleet at close to 40 of its jets, including nine 737-8s and five 737-9s.

What Is Still Unsettled

Tickets are on sale and the first departure is set for October 20. The published schedule listing runs from October 29 to December 31, and neither it nor the announcement says whether the service continues past the Northern winter season. The reviewed materials do not give a cabin configuration for the aircraft assigned to the route.

One commercial question is left open by the agreement that made the routing possible. It permits carriage to and beyond intermediate points, but nothing in the announcement or the schedule listing says whether SCAT will sell Sanya–Singapore as a local market alongside the Kazakh traffic the route is built to carry.