SIA passenger demand to remain low despite vaccine lane approvals

It will take longer for the flag carrier to recover to pre-COVID levels.

According to a recently released report by UOB Kay Hian, Singapore Airlines’s passenger capacity is expected to exceed passenger demand. 

This comes as Singapore recently announced a Vaccine Travel Lane for fully vaccinated travelers from Germany and Brunei from 8 September to 22 October 2021. Other countries are also planned expansions for the program. 

However, CIMB points to the lack of increase in ticket prices as a sign that the capacity still exceeds demand for this. Tickets to Munich and Frankfurt, key German cities, in particular, show no change when compared to pre-pandemic levels for both back-end and front-end travel. 

CIMB predicts this to be the case over the next two years, which is in line with SIA’s own guidance for the normalisation of pax yields.