Scoot makes debut flight to Qingdao, Shenyang

Scoot, the long-haul budget unit of Singapore Airlines, made its debut flight to China's Qingdao and Shenyang early on Friday. The airline had before canceled some 20 flights from Singapore to the two cities last year, citing problems with regulatory approval.

"The new schedule requires the thrice-weekly service to operate a route of Singapore QingdaoShenyangQingdaoSingapore routing, instead of the originally-planned circular routing of SingaporeShenyangQingdaoSingapore," the company said in a statement.

They're the eighth and ninth routes for Scoot.

The route between Singapore and Shenyang via Qingdao will be operated on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday every week.

Flight information on Changi Airport's website has unveiled that the flight was scheduled to leave Singapore at 00:05 a.m. on Friday, but the departure time had been revised to 01:30 a.m..

Last November, the Scoot said in the statement issued from its account on Weibo.com, a Chinese website like Twitter, that all the flights to both destinations on the route between Nov. 27 last year and Jan. 8 this year were canceled.

Affected passengers complained of such sudden changes to their flights at that time. But a spokesperson had explained that it's standard practice for airlines to launch destinations and sell tickets before regulatory approval has been given.