SINGAPORE (Feb 17): Singapore Airlines Group (SIA) reported a 1.4 percentage point increase in passenger load factor (PLF) for January to 84.5%, on the back of improved contributions across all its airlines.
In a regulatory filing on Monday, SIA reported that passenger carriage grew 7.9% from the previous year, outpacing capacity growth of 6.1%.
The group’s flagship carrier Singapore Airlines booked a 0.6 ppt increase in PLF from the previous year to 84.1%. Passenger carriage increased 7.2% y-o-y against capacity injection of 6.5%.
The group says that the improved PLF was attributable to stronger returning traffic from year-end holidays for the Americas, Europe, and West Asia and Africa regions. PLF for East Asia remained flat, while PLF for the South West Pacific region declined marginally as capacity growth outstripped demand.
Regional carrier Silkair’s PLF increased 4.4 ppt to 79.6% as its systemwide passenger carriage decreased by 2.7% due to an 8.0% contraction in capacity. The group notes that the transfer of 11 destinations to Scoot, as well as the transfer of Busan to Singapore Airlines and the grounding of Boeing 737 MAX 8 fleet from service, had affected SilkAir's capacity.
Budget carrier Scoot’s PLF climbed 3.1 ppt to 87.5% with passenger carriage increasing by 13.5% against capacity expansion of 9.4%. Improved performances for the Southeast Asia and North Asia regions due to the Lunar New Year festive season led to higher PLF in East Asia. West Asia also recorded improvement in demand, while Rest of World benefited from stronger connecting traffic.
Scoot’s services to Wuhan, however, were suspended from Jan 23 following the COVID-19 outbreak.
The improved performances of SIA’s airlines were partially offset by a weaker performance in SIA’s cargo sector.
Overall cargo load factor (CLF) fell 5.9 ppt to 52.2% as the decline in cargo traffic outpaced the capacity contraction of 4.1%. All route regions had registered declines in CLF for the month.
Separately, SIA has also announced new senior management appointments, effective from April 1.
Ng Chin Hwee, SIA’s executive vice president (human resources and operations) is set to take an early retirement from SIA on March 31, and will join SIA Engineering as its CEO.
Lee Lik Hsin, CEO of Scoot, will return to SIA as its executive vice president (commercial),w where he will oversee the cargo, customer experience, marketing, planning and sales and marketing divisions, as well as the sales regions. SIA’s senior vice president (sales and marketing) Campbell Wilson will be appointed CEO of Scoot.
Mak Swee Wah, SIA’s executive vice president (commercial) will assume the post of executive vice president (operations), which will see him head SIA’s cabin crew, customer service and operations, and flight operations divisions.
Tan Kai Ping, senior vice president (marketing planning) will take on the role of executive vice president (finance and strategy), which will see him head the corporate planning and finance divisions.
“The SIA Group has highly capable executives with deep organisational and industry expertise, who are able to step up and take on new responsibilities,” says SIA CEO Goh Choon Phong, adding that the appointments will further strengthen the management team and better position the group for the future.
The announcements come after SIA on Feb 14 reported a 10.9% growth in earnings to $314.8 million for 3QFY2019, as revenue edged up by 3% to $4.47 billion during the quarter.
However, the group warned of “significant challenges” ahead on the back of the growing scale of the COVID-19 outbreak.
See: SIA 3Q earnings up but warns of significant challenges ahead
Shares in Singapore Airlines closed four cents higher, or 0.46% up, at $8.66 on Monday.
