SIA carried fewer passengers in March, but cargo improved

Singapore Airlines (SIA) said on Tuesday it carried fewer passengers in March and warned the operating environment remained challenging.

The Singapore flag carrier carried 1.51 million passengers last month -- a drop of 3.8 per cent from a year ago.

SIA's systemwide passenger carriage, which tracks revenues relative to distance travelled by passengers, decreased 5.4 per cent year-on-year, while passenger load factor -- a measure of the proportion of seats filled -- fell to 75 per cent from 79.3 per cent.

"The weaker passenger carriage was attributed to a combination of the Easter demand shift from March last year to April this year, and soft demand to Bangkok," SIA said in a statement.

SIA said its yields are expected to remain under pressure as efforts are made to boost loads in the current challenging operating environment.

The cargo business, however, showed some signs of improvement, with the overall cargo load factor rising by 0.8 percentage points to 68.0 per cent.

SOURCE