SIA staff rewarded with nearly 8 months of bonus pay as airline posts record S$2.7 billion profit for FY2024

SINGAPORE Airlines (SIA) is said to be rewarding eligible employees with a profit-sharing bonus of 7.94 months for FY2024, following the group’s record earnings, The Business Times has learnt.

This is higher than FY2023’s 6.65 months, which did not include ex-gratia bonus to reward staff for their hard work during the pandemic.

The annual profit-sharing compensation is based on a long-standing formula that has been agreed with staff unions, a spokesperson from the airline told BT last year.

It did not reply to queries from BT this time.

SIA on Wednesday (May 15) posted its highest earnings of about S$2.7 billion for the year ended Mar 31, up 24 per cent from the year before. Top line was up 7 per cent year on year to a record-high of S$19 billion.

Staff expenses rose 16.2 per cent to S$3.6 billion for FY2024 from S$3.1 billion a year ago, based on the financial statements.

The full-service carrier had 16,643 staff on average in FY2024, up 12.4 per cent year on year. This was in line with the higher capacity, SIA said.

Last year, the carrier’s employees were handed a profit-sharing bonus of 6.65 months and a maximum total of 1.5 months of ex-gratia bonus in recognition of their hard work and sacrifices during the pandemic.

Employees of Scoot, SIA’s budget airline, received a bumper performance bonus of 4.76 months last year on top of an additional 0.5 month of ex-gratia bonus for each of the last three financial years, or a maximum of 1.5 months.

Scoot did not reply to queries from BT about this year’s bonus. BT understands that Scoot employees will be told about their bonus at a townhall meeting on Thursday.