SIA profit crashed 47.5% to $682.7m in FY19

Rising expenses from steep fuel costs hit earnings.

SIA’s full year earnings plunged 47.5% YoY from $1.3b in 2018 to $682.7m, dragged down by lower operating profit and higher non-operating costs, an announcement revealed.

Operating profit declined by $482m to $1.07b and expenditure rose by $1b to $15.3b as fuel costs continue to rise.

On the other hand, the group’s revenues grew 3.27% to $16.3b from $15.8b in 2018.

Flown revenue growth was up $829m, with passenger flown revenue improving 6.4% to $784m, lifted by traffic growth of 8.5%, on a 6.4% increase in capacity. The group’s passenger load factor rose 1.6ppt to 83%, which is said to hit a record-high. Cargo flown revenue for the year climbed 2.1% to $45m, as cargo yield growth of 5.7% countered the 3.5% decline in loads carried.

Also read: SIA Group's passenger load factor up 0.8 ppt in April

Operating profit for the parent airline company declined $347m to $991m as the flown revenue growth of $613m was offset by the absence of nonrecurring incidental revenue and higher expenditure. Passenger load factor for FY19 rocketed to 83.1% (up by 2ppt), the highest on record.

All route regions saw healthy passenger flown revenue growth for the company, with Europe, West Asia/Africa and the Americas, in particular, seeing strong demand. Passenger carriage grew 7%, whilst capacity expanded at a slower pace at 4.5%.

Meanwhile, SilkAir reported an operating profit of $15m, a decline of $29m YoY, no thanks to an increase in net fuel cost (+$30m).

Passenger carriage growth was strong went up 7.2% on modest capacity growth of 3.2%. However, flown revenue growth moderated to 2.1% of only $20m.