[SINGAPORE] National carrier Singapore Airlines (SIA) and its low-cost arm Scoot reported a 3.1 per cent year-on-year increase in passenger traffic in May, easing from the previous month’s growth, its operating results showed on Monday (Jun 16).
In April, passenger traffic grew 4.8 per cent year on year, driven partly by the Easter holidays, SIA said last month. Passenger traffic is measured by multiplying the number of passengers carried with the distance flown in kilometres.
The group’s passenger traffic in May was slightly ahead of the 2.8 per cent year-on-year increase in passenger capacity in the same month. Passenger capacity is derived by multiplying the number of available seats with the distance flown in kilometres.
The group passenger traffic growth in May was partly offset by Scoot’s performance. The budget carrier’s passenger traffic rose 1.4 per cent year on year, compared with SIA’s 3.5 per cent increase.
Scoot’s passenger capacity also shrank 1.8 per cent year on year in May, while SIA recorded a 4 per cent year-on-year growth.
Even so, Scoot’s May performance on these two fronts was in fact an improvement over its April showing.
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The group’s passenger load factor (PLF) inched up 0.3 percentage point year on year to 86.4 per cent.
PLF is passenger traffic expressed as a percentage of passenger capacity.
In total, the two airlines carried 3.4 million passengers in May, 6.3 per cent higher than in the same period in 2024.
Cargo loads rose 4.2 per cent year on year in the month, higher than the 2.9 per cent growth in cargo capacity. As a result, cargo load factor climbed 0.7 percentage point year on year to 57.2 per cent. This was an improvement from April, in which there was a 1.5-percentage-point drop in cargo load factor to 57.1 per cent.
SIA noted that cargo demand in May was supported by front-loading activity, in anticipation of growing uncertainty in the global trade environment.
SIA shares fell S$0.07, or 1 per cent, to close at S$6.87 on Monday.
