SINGAPORE (Oct 15): Singapore Airlines Group (SIA) reported a 1.2 percentage point increase in passenger load factor (PLF) to 84.8% on the back of improved PLF figures across all its airlines.
In a bourse filing on its September operating results, SIA said that overall airlines’ passenger carriage grew 8.7% y-o-y, outpacing capacity growth of 7.1%.
Notably, regional carrier SilkAir recorded an increase of 3.7 percentage points in PLF to 77.3% as the system-wide passenger carriage grew by 7.2% against a 2.1% increase in capacity. The strong growth in passenger carriage for all regions led to increases in PLF for East Asia and Pacific, as well as West Asia.
The group’s flagship carrier Singapore Airlines’ PLF rose 1.0% from the preceding year to 85.4%. Passenger carriage increased 9.2% compared to last year, against capacity injection of 7.9%. Apart from a marginal decline in Americas, PLF improved for all other route regions including East Asia, Europe, West Asia and Africa and South West Pacific.
Budget air Scoot’s PLF rose 1.4 percentage points to 85.2% as passenger carriage increased by 7.4% against a capacity injection of 5.6%. PLF improved for West Asia as demand for India improved following the suspension of several underperforming routes. Rest of World also registered higher PLF as demand for long-haul routes to Europe improved, while East Asia's PLF remained flat.
The improved performances of all airlines were partially offset by a weaker performance in SIA’s cargo sector. Overall cargo load factor (CLF) fell 5.6 percentage points to 59.5% on the back of a decline in cargo traffic which outpaced the capacity contraction of 1.2%. All route regions were noted to have registered declines in CLF.
Shares in Singapore Airlines closed 3 cents lower, or 0.33% down, at $9.06 on Tuesday prior to the announcement.
