Passengers flying in and out of Singapore have been caught in a fresh wave of disruption after a cluster of key regional and long haul services were cancelled or heavily delayed on Friday, February 13, 2026. Flights operated by Emirates, United Airlines, Thai Airways and other major carriers linking Singapore with Jakarta, Dubai, Tokyo, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, San Francisco and additional hubs faced cancellations and schedule upheaval, leaving travelers stranded at Changi Airport and across the region as airlines scrambled to rebook seats and restore normal operations.
What Happened at Singapore Changi Today
Data from regional aviation trackers and airport monitoring platforms showed Singapore once again at the center of a wider Asian disruption pattern, with flights to and from Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan and the Middle East bearing the brunt. Several departures from Changi bound for Jakarta, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and key long haul destinations were cancelled outright or retimed, while incoming services suffered long delays that cascaded through airline schedules during the day.
While the exact list of affected flights evolved throughout the morning and afternoon, industry reports pointed to at least seven high profile services being pulled from the schedule or restructured at short notice. These included regional routes to Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur, busy leisure and business corridors to Bangkok and Tokyo, and long haul links such as Singapore to San Francisco via partner hubs. The cancellations intersected with broader turbulence in Asian air travel, where thousands of delays and dozens of cancellations were recorded across Thailand, Japan, China, India, Indonesia and Malaysia on the same day.
Singapore has been dealing with intermittent congestion for weeks, amplified by the recent Singapore Airshow airspace restrictions that affected some Changi operations between January 29 and February 8, 2026, and caused a wave of retimings and cancellations on routes to Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Phuket, Manila, Busan and beyond. As airlines continue to rebalance fleets and crews after that period, even comparatively small shocks elsewhere in the network are feeding into disruptions at the Singapore hub.
How Emirates, United and Thai Airways Were Caught Up
The current disruption is not limited to a single airline or route. Emirates, which operates key services linking Dubai with Singapore as well as onward connections across Southeast Asia, has already spent recent weeks reshuffling parts of its global network in response to severe winter weather in North America and evolving security and routing constraints around the Middle East. That broader strain has increased the risk that operational hiccups or aircraft availability issues elsewhere can reverberate into its Singapore schedule.
United Airlines has also featured prominently in Asia’s recent wave of disruption. A string of cancellations and delays across Japan, China, Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore earlier this month saw United flights among those grounded or heavily retimed, with passengers stranded in hubs such as Osaka, Tokyo Narita, Jakarta and Bangkok as ripple effects moved through its transpacific network. Those challenges have made long haul routes connecting Singapore and San Francisco, often via partner or alliance connections, particularly vulnerable to knock-on schedule changes.
Thai Airways, meanwhile, has been navigating a series of pressure points on its Bangkok focused network. High traffic through Suvarnabhumi Airport, coupled with weather variations and regional congestion, has led to spikes of delays and cancellations in recent days. On February 13, fresh data from Southeast Asian airports showed Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta and Bali among the hardest hit, with more than two thousand delays and a dozen cancellations across key carriers including Thai Airways, AirAsia, Garuda Indonesia and others. That environment, combined with tight turnaround times on heavily used aircraft, has contributed to disruption for Singapore bound and Singapore originating flights.
Jakarta, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Tokyo Among the Worst Hit
The disruption affecting travelers at Changi on February 13 cannot be viewed in isolation. On the same day, regional monitoring data pointed to more than four thousand delays and over sixty cancellations across Asia’s major hubs, with Jakarta Soekarno Hatta and Kuala Lumpur International among the most affected airports by total delay and cancellation counts. Additional pressure was felt at Bangkok Suvarnabhumi, Delhi, Mumbai, Beijing and a string of Chinese, Indian and Southeast Asian cities.
Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur in particular have emerged as consistent trouble spots. Both airports reported hundreds of delayed departures and arrivals, alongside multiple outright cancellations, prompting rolling gate changes and long queues at rebooking desks. For Singapore based travelers, this meant that even if their flight from Changi was operating, onward legs to these cities or connections through them to elsewhere in the region risked substantial disruption.
Bangkok and Tokyo, two of Asia’s most important connecting hubs, also played a central role in amplifying the chaos. Recent statistics from across the region highlighted large numbers of delayed and cancelled flights involving Bangkok and Japanese airports such as Tokyo and Osaka, with carriers including ANA, Jetstar, Thai Airways and others adjusting schedules. For passengers trying to move between Singapore and Tokyo or transiting via Bangkok on interline and codeshare tickets, the combination of congested airspace, overtaxed ground operations and aircraft reassignments created an unstable environment for reliable trip planning.
Why Dubai and San Francisco Connections Are Feeling the Pain
The knock-on effect of disruptions across Asia is especially visible on long haul corridors that rely on seamless hub transfers. Dubai, a critical gateway linking Asia with Europe, Africa and the Americas, has faced its own operational headwinds in recent weeks. Emirates and Etihad have both cancelled or retimed services on certain routes as severe winter storms disrupted the United States aviation system in late January, forcing large scale cancellations and diversions. Those adjustments have reverberated into the capacity available for other markets, including Southeast Asia.
When a carrier like Emirates absorbs widespread disruption across its global network, individual city pairs such as Dubai to Singapore or onward connections through Dubai to San Francisco or other North American cities become susceptible to late aircraft arrivals, crew timing constraints or temporary frequency cuts. That dynamic helps explain how a localized schedule issue can translate into passengers at Changi being told their Dubai or onward US flight has been cancelled or reshuffled.
San Francisco bound travelers have also felt the pressure from the transpacific side. United and other airlines using Japanese and other Northeast Asian hubs for onward connections have recently recorded dozens of cancellations and more than a thousand delays across Japan, China and Indonesia, with services linking Osaka, Narita, Jakarta and Bangkok among those impacted. For passengers ticketed on itineraries connecting Singapore with the US West Coast via these hubs, even a minor delay on the Singapore segment can become a missed connection when the upstream network is already stretched thin.
How the Singapore Airshow and Regional Congestion Still Matter
Although today’s cancellations come after the official end of the Singapore Airshow airspace restrictions on February 8, the residue of that event is still being felt. During the exhibition period, a series of temporary airspace closures forced Singapore Airlines and other carriers to retime or cancel flights on routes including Singapore to Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Phuket, Manila, Busan and New York. Some departures were renumbered and moved several hours earlier, while others, such as flights between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur or Phuket on selected days, were cancelled entirely.
Those schedule reshuffles required airlines to rework rosters, reposition aircraft and juggle slot allocations not only at Changi but at airports across the region. While many of these changes were well signposted in advance, the reality of complex network operations is that recovery from such a concentrated burst of disruption can take weeks. Any new weather event, air traffic control restriction or operational glitch in February can hit carriers and airports that have little spare slack remaining in their systems.
The broader context is that Asia has been experiencing repeated days of intense congestion since late 2025. Reports from December detailed more than three thousand six hundred delays and over a hundred cancellations in a single day across major Asian gateways, with Shenzhen, Kuala Lumpur, Delhi, Tokyo, Jakarta, Bangkok, Singapore and Dubai among those hit the hardest. That pattern has continued into early 2026, with intermittent spikes in delays and comparatively lower but still significant volumes of cancellations placing constant strain on airline punctuality.
What Today’s Disruptions Mean if You Are Flying Soon
For travelers scheduled to fly from Singapore to Jakarta, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo, Dubai, San Francisco or other major hubs over the coming days, the latest wave of cancellations is a warning sign that schedules may remain fragile even after airlines restore today’s affected services. Given the elevated levels of delays and cancellations reported across Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia, passengers should assume that tight connections and last minute bookings carry higher risk than usual.
Airlines generally encourage passengers to monitor their booking status closely through official apps, manage booking tools and airport information displays, especially in the 24 hours before departure. In many recent cases, flight numbers and departure times have been adjusted multiple times in the same day as carriers respond to late arriving aircraft or slot changes. Where flights are cancelled altogether, carriers have typically offered rebooking on the next available service, rerouting via alternative hubs, or refunds on the unused portion of tickets.
Travelers connecting from regional flights into long haul services, or vice versa, should be particularly cautious. If a short regional leg from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur or Bangkok experiences a significant delay, the onward long haul to Europe, the Middle East or North America might no longer be viable. In such situations, speaking to airline staff early, rather than waiting at the gate, can improve the chances of being reprotected on an alternative routing before other stranded passengers compete for the same limited seats.
Practical Tips for Navigating Ongoing Asia Pacific Disruptions
The recent pattern of disruptions across Singapore, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Tokyo, Dubai and San Francisco underscores the importance of building resilience into travel plans. Where possible, booking itineraries with longer connection windows, especially when transiting through multiple hubs, can offer a buffer against moderate delays. Choosing through tickets on a single airline or within one alliance often simplifies rerouting and compensation negotiations when things do go wrong.
Travel insurance that explicitly covers missed connections, significant delays and schedule changes can help offset the financial impact of being stranded. Policies differ widely, so travelers should review coverage for accommodation, meals and alternative transport in the event of airline caused disruptions versus weather or airspace related issues. Keeping digital and printed copies of boarding passes, booking confirmations and receipts makes any subsequent claim or refund request easier to process.
At the airport, staying flexible and informed is essential. Monitoring flight information screens, airline push notifications and the announcements at departure gates can provide early warning of changes. In crowded disruption scenarios, many airlines temporarily increase staff at transfer desks and customer service counters, but queues can still be long. Passengers who also use airline call centers or live chat channels on mobile apps often find they can secure rebookings more quickly than waiting in a physical line alone.
Looking Ahead: Will Things Improve Soon
In the near term, the underlying drivers of disruption across Asia are unlikely to disappear overnight. Seasonal weather patterns, from winter storms affecting transpacific and transcontinental routes to heavy rains and thunderstorms across Southeast Asia, will continue to pose challenges. Ongoing congestion at high demand airports, combined with evolving security guidance in certain airspaces and the industry’s broader post pandemic recovery, means that operational flexibility is still constrained compared with pre crisis norms.
For Singapore specifically, the conclusion of the airshow related airspace restrictions should gradually ease some of the local pressure. As airlines settle into their late winter and early spring schedules, the hope is that better alignment between aircraft availability, crew planning and slot allocations will reduce the frequency of last minute cancellations like those seen today. However, as the events of February 13 show, disruptions elsewhere in the network, from Jakarta and Bangkok to Dubai and San Francisco, can still send shockwaves through Changi.
For now, passengers are advised to approach travel plans with a realistic understanding that conditions remain fluid. Building extra time into itineraries, staying closely engaged with airline communications and having contingency plans for unexpected overnights or missed connections will remain prudent for anyone flying between Singapore and key regional or long haul destinations over the coming weeks.