THE overall passenger numbers of SIA Group's airlines fell 65 per cent year on year to 1.1 million in March, against the backdrop of muted travel demand and travel restrictions amid the Covid-19 outbreak, the group said in a bourse filing on Wednesday. 

The group's airlines also recorded a a 60.4 per cent year-on-year decline in passenger carriage, measured in revenue passenger-kilometers. Capacity cuts in March resulted in an overall reduction of 43.8 per cent, measured in available seat kilometres, during the month. 

Among the group's airlines, national carrier Singapore Airlines carried 665,000 passengers in March, a 62.9 per cent drop from the year before.

The number of passengers carried by SilkAir fell 72 per cent to 113,000 passengers; low-cost unit Scoot carried 318,000 passengers, 65.2 per cent fewer than it did a year ago. 

By the end of March, SIA had announced a 96 per cent cut in SIA and SilkAir's combined scheduled capacity till the end of April, resulting in the grounding of 138 out of 147 SIA and SilkAir aircraft.

Scoot has also suspended 98 per cent of its network, resulting in the grounding of 47 of its fleet of 49 aircraft.

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Those developments have left just 10 aircraft, out of the group's 200, serving a limited passenger network, SIA said. It has also said that the capacity cuts may need to be extended "if border controls and travel restrictions remain in place and travel demand continues to be low". 

"Operating this limited schedule will have a severe impact on the group's financial performance," SIA said on Wednesday. 

In addition, the scale of the flight cuts means that the group is now in an over-hedged position with respect to fuel consumption. Surplus hedges will need to be marked to market, and are expected to generate "substantial losses".

Demand has held up on the cargo front, however, although the reduction in passenger operations has "significantly reduced" overall cargo capacity. SIA said it has been selectively deploying passenger aircraft on cargo-only flights to meet the demand from global supply chains. 

This week, the group received in-principle approval from the Singapore Exchange for its proposed fund-raising efforts. An extraordinary general meeting for SIA shareholders to vote on its S$15 billion debt and equity capital raising will take place at 11.30am on April 30. 

Shares of SIA closed down 1.28 per cent at S$6.17 on Wednesday.