SIA's passenger carriage and load factor for June dip amid tough competition

SINGAPORE Airlines' (SIA) passenger carriage (in revenue-passenger-kilometre) fell 3.8 per cent year on year in June, against a 1.3 per cent scale-back in capacity (in available-seat-km).

As a result, passenger load factor (PLF) fell 2.1 percentage points to 77.8 per cent.

"Apart from East Asia, PLF declined for all other regions due to weaker passenger demand," the carrier said, pointing to a competitive landscape.

Meanwhile, regional wing SilkAir's passenger carriage dipped 0.1 per cent against a 6.1 per cent bump-up in capacity, which caused PLF to fall 4.2 percentage points to 68.1 per cent.

Medium/long-haul budget carrier Scoot's passenger carriage expanded 59.5 per cent while capacity rose 57.7 per cent as its fleet grew from six Boeing 777s a year ago to 11 Dreamliners in June this year. PLF was 0.9 percentage point higher at 83.5 per cent.

Short-haul budget arm Tigerair's carriage dropped 3.9 per cent against a 2.2 per cent decline in capacity, which caused PLF to fall 1.5 percentage points to 83.5 per cent.

On the cargo front, however, things were looking a little more positive.

Overall cargo load factor was 0.8 percentage point higher as cargo traffic (measured in freight-tonne-km) grew 5.9 per cent against capacity growth of 4.5 per cent.

"The East Asia and the Americas regions recorded improvements in load factor with demand outpacing capacity changes," the group said.