Flight bookings show pent-up demand, bodes well for Singapore's air traffic target

SINGAPORE could be on track to restoring at least 50 per cent of pre-Covid airport traffic this year, going by the strong travel demand showing up in future bookings.

Numbers from global air travel analytics firm ForwardKeys showed that air tickets booked to depart Singapore during the upcoming public holidays in early May, Labour Day (May 1) and Hari Raya Puasa (May 3), have surged to 178 per cent of pre-Covid levels and as high as 336 per cent of pre-pandemic levels on Apr 30 (Saturday), the start of the 4-day long "weekend".

It shows the unleashing of pent-up demand in Singapore outbound leisure travel, vice-president of sales for Asia-Pacific at ForwardKeys, Kee Bing Han, told The Business Times.

He noted that data shows regional countries within 2 to 4 hours of flight time are a favourite with outbound travellers, as Maldives, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand each logging a jump of over 10 times pre-pandemic levels and among destinations with the highest increase.

Besides these public holidays, June school holiday data also showed "bullish" outbound travel confidence, with outbound air tickets booked being at 81 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.

Kee stated that the destinations seeing the highest jumps compared to pre-pandemic are Australia (148 per cent), Thailand (114 per cent) and the United States (108 per cent).

Carriers are ramping up their capacity to take advantage of the pent-up demand, as data from aviation analytics company Cirium shows that there were about 6,800 scheduled flights in or out of Singapore in April to June 2021 whereas there are about 3 times more or over 21,400 scheduled flights for the same quarter this year.

Cirium's data shows the top 5 countries that have the most scheduled flights in or out of Singapore for this quarter are Malaysia (3,332), India (2,326), Australia (2,260), Thailand (2,218) and Indonesia (2,160).

Marketing director at Cirium, June Lee, said: "This increase could be airlines' response to an anticipated change in travel demand."

Flag carrier Singapore Airlines, for instance, is one of the airlines that will be flying more as it now expects the group's passenger capacity to reach about 61 per cent of pre-pandemic levels by May.

Singapore announced that the city-state would reopen to all vaccinated travellers from April, as it targets to raise passenger volumes at Changi Airport to at least 50 per cent of pre-Covid levels this year.

Noted by ForwardKeys was a 31 per cent surge in the week of the Mar 24 announcement in the number of air tickets issued for arrivals into Singapore over the previous week. Departures from Singapore increased by 19 per cent week on week.

Although inbound flight bookings from Indonesia had the biggest week-on-week jump at 268 per cent, Australia was the top source market and destination with the most arrival and departure tickets issued. Compared to pre-pandemic levels, total inbound air tickets issued rose to 68 per cent while outbound, 78 per cent, during the Mar 24 week as compared to the earlier week.

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