SIA passenger load factor rose 3.4 ppt to 84.4% in September

Cargo load factor dipped 0.2 ppt.

Singapore Airlines (SIA) Group's passenger load factor (PLF) inched up 3.4 ppt YoY to 84.4% in September. On a monthly basis, it dipped 0.4 ppt from 84.8% in August.

Passenger carriage measured in revenue passenger kilometres inched up 7.7% YoY compared outpacing capacity injection of 4.2%.

For SIA, PLF rose 3.4 ppt to 84.4% whilst passenger carriage increased 5.7% YoY against a 1.4% increase in capacity. According to SIA, PLF improved for all route regions with traffic sustaining its strength towards the end of summer.

The firm thinks that unit revenue (measured in revenue per available seat-kilometres) will remain positive as revenue growth outpaced capacity injection.

Meanwhile, SilkAir’s systemwide passenger carriage increased 5.6% beating capacity growth of 2.4%. Consequently, PLF increased 2.1 ppt to 73.6% as it saw improvements across North Asia, Southeast Asia and Australia.

For Scoot, passenger carriage growth hit 16.7%, largely in line with capacity expansion of 16.5%. Its PLF inched up 0.1ppt to 83.8% as it edged up for West Asia and rest of world regions, led by routes to India, Australia, Maldives, as well as long haul routes to Europe.

However, Scoot’s East Asia region recorded a decline in PLF as traffic did not keep pace with increase in capacity.

Cargo load factor (CLF) fell 0.2 ppt with the 2.9% drop in cargo traffic (measured in freight-tonne-kilometres) exceeding the contraction in cargo capacity of 2.5%. CLF improved across the Americas, and West Asia and Africa, whilst CLF in other regions declined as demand did not keep pace with capacity changes.