Up, up and away: SIA’s passenger load factor rebounds to 81.6% in July

Singapore Airlines reported a good rebound in carriage growth and load factors for July 2011 on a m-o-m basis. Passenger carriage grew by 4.5% yoy to 7,839.3m p-km, on 5.5% yoy growth in capacity. Passenger load factor dropped marginally by 0.8ppt to 81.6%, which is considered favorable compared to load factors of 74.6% (-3ppt yoy) in April, 73.6% (- 1.2ppt) in May and 78.8% in June (-4ppt yoy). Silkair continued to fare well, registering 7.1% yoy carriage growth and 1.4ppt improvement in load factor to 75.3%. For the cargo business, carriage grew by 2.2% yoy to 627.2m tonne-km and load factor improved by 1ppt to 65% in July.

This set of numbers is in line with our expectations that Q1, from April to June, should be the worst quarter for SIA, with 75.6% passenger load factor, and that coming quarters should be stronger for SIA.