SIA Group passenger traffic rises 7% in April

[SINGAPORE] Singapore Airlines (SIA) Group’s passenger traffic grew 7 per cent year on year in April, outpacing a 6.3 per cent increase in capacity, the group announced on Friday (May 15).The group, which comprises flagship carrier SIA and budget arm Scoot, posted passenger traffic of 13.7 billion revenue passenger kilometres (km) in April, up from 12.8 billion in the year-ago period.Passenger traffic measures demand for an airline’s service and is derived by multiplying the number of passengers carried by distance travelled.The group recorded a passenger load factor (PLF) of 88.4 per cent for the month, an improvement of 0.5 percentage points from the year before. PLF is the passenger traffic expressed as a percentage of passenger capacity.The two airlines carried a combined total of 3.6 million passengers, a 7.5 per cent increase year on year.SIA’s monthly PLF stood at 87.7 per cent; Scoot’s PLF was 91 per cent.Navigate Asia ina new global orderGet the insights delivered to your inbox.For the flagship carrier, passenger traffic rose 5.1 per cent to 10.5 billion revenue passenger-km, against a 4.3 per cent expansion in capacity.Performance was notably strong on European routes, where the PLF rose 4.9 percentage points to 87.7 per cent.The group attributed these gains to “spillover passenger traffic and cargo loads, particularly on services to Europe and the Americas, as capacity through Middle East hubs remained constrained by the ongoing conflict in the region”.SEE ALSOTransforming Air India ‘definitely not going to be a walk in the park’: SIA chief Goh Choon PhongSIA flying into turbulence from fuel costs, Air India losses, but dividends offer upsideBudget carrier Scoot’s capacity grew 14.2 per cent year on year, while passenger traffic rose 13.7 per cent to 3.1 billion revenue passenger-km.On the cargo front, loads grew 3.7 per cent year on year to 530.7 million tonne-km, from 511.9 million tonne-km, against a capacity expansion of 2.3 per cent.Consequently, the cargo load factor went up by 0.8 percentage points to 57.9 per cent.Cargo and mail carried totalled 102.6 million kg, representing a 6.9 per cent increase over the preceding year.Shares of SIA ended at S$6.42, S$0.15 or 2.4 per cent higher on Friday before the announcement.Decoding Asia newsletter: your guide to navigating Asia in a new global order. Sign up here to get Decoding Asia newsletter. Delivered to your inbox. Free.