Empty seats: Singapore Airlines' passenger carriage dropped 6.8%

Poor demand prompted a system-wide decline.

The country’s flag carrier went through a slightly turbulent month of August as its passenger load factor (PLF) dropped 5.2ppt to 79.7%.

Singapore Airlines (SIA) revealed its passenger carriage in August 2016 went down 2.9% compared to last year, while capacity inched up 3.6%.

“Singapore Airlines' systemwide passenger carriage declined by 6.8% against a 0.3% decrease in capacity year-on-year. Consequently, PLF fell 5.6 percentage points to 80.0%.” SIA said.

SIA admitted it’s moving towards headwinds as PLF declined across all regions due to softer passenger demand. The competitive landscape continues to remain challenging and promotional activities will continue in relevant markets.

Meanwhile, SilkAir’s systemwide passenger carriage dove 2.0% YoY, compared to a 5.3% expansion in capacity. PLF also dipped 5.2 percentage points to 71.0%.

“Growth in passenger carriage for East Asia and Pacific, and West Asia regions lagged behind capacity growth, resulting in a 5.6 percentage point and 4.1 percentage point decrease in PLF respectively.

Scoot's systemwide passenger carriage rose 52.8% on a full year basis. Capacity increased 61.8% on back of additional aircrafts totaling the fleet to eleven from seven previously. PLF, however, decreased by 4.8 percentage points to 80.4%.

Tigerair's systemwide passenger carriage declined 7.0% year-on-year compared to a 3.6% reduction in capacity. PLF decreased by 2.9 percentage points to 82.2%.

Cargo load factor (CLF) was 1.0 percentage points higher, with growth in cargo traffic of 8.6% exceeding capacity increase of 6.8%.

“All route regions showed improvement in CLF except for West Asia and Africa, with demand outpacing capacity changes,” the airline added.

Reaching the people who run Asia's businesses is harder than it used to be.

Inboxes are crowded. Attention is short. The executives you most want to reach — the founders, CFOs, and operators who actually move budgets — are the hardest to find through the usual channels. If you're building a company, a category, or a reputation, you already know this.

We've spent twenty years building the room they read. Singapore Business Review is where senior decision makers in Singapore and across Southeast Asia come for business coverage they can't get elsewhere — in print, online, and in person at the summits and roundtables we host across seven markets.

If you have something these readers should know about — a point of view worth publishing, a product worth their attention, an event worth their time — we'd like to hear what you're trying to do.

Book a meeting

| Or download the media kit (PDF)

240,000 senior readers quarterly in print Top 1,700 Singapore companies reached

7 markets across Southeast Asia