SIA Group passenger traffic up 1.5% in August
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The growth in both passenger traffic and capacity was mainly in East Asia, Europe and the South West Pacific, said the group.
ST PHOTO: GAVIN FOO
Derryn Wong
SINGAPORE – SIA Group’s passenger traffic for August was up 1.5 per cent year on year to 13.8 million revenue passenger kilometre (RPK) on “healthy demand”.
In a bourse filing on Sept 15, the group said passenger capacity increased 3.5 per cent to 16 million available seat kilometres (ASK), while the number of passengers carried was up 3.6 per cent to 3.7 million across the same time frame.
RPK is an aviation industry measure of passenger traffic and demand, calculated by multiplying the number of paying passengers by the distance travelled in kilometres.
ASK is a measure of passenger carrying capacity, obtained by multiplying the number of available seats on a flight by the distance flown in kilometres.
The growth in both passenger traffic and capacity was mainly in East Asia, Europe and the South West Pacific, said the group.
Group airline load factor was down 1.6 percentage points to 86.4 per cent.
Traffic for flag carrier Singapore Airlines increased 0.5 per cent to 10.5 million RPK, while Scoot’s was up 4.9 per cent to 3.3 million RPK.
Capacity for the airlines was up 3.2 per cent to 12.4 million ASK and 4.6 per cent to 3.6 million ASK, respectively.
SIA’s load factor dipped 2.2 percentage points to 84.7 per cent, while Scoot’s increased 0.3 percentage point to 92.2.
For the group, cargo load was up 2.8 per cent to 533.8 million tonne-km. Gross cargo capacity was down 0.7 per cent to 933.5 million tonne-km due to aircraft maintenance.
Cargo demand remained strong across the board, though e-commerce flow to Europe softened after the EU introduced a small-parcel duty and removed the de minimis exemption since July 1, said the group.
SIA shares closed down 0.3 per cent or two Singapore cents at $6.61 on Sept 15, before the update. THE BUSINESS TIMES