SIA passenger load factor rises in Dec 2012

Singapore Airlines' (SIA) passenger load factor (PLF), or the average occupancy per aircraft, rose 2.6 percentage points year-on-year to 82.2 per cent in December 2012.

The number of people flying Singapore Airlines (SIA) was also up 6.0 per cent over the same time in 2012, bringing the number of passengers to 1.6 million.

In a statement on Tuesday, SIA said operating numbers jumped because of a strong holiday travel season. Long haul routes to the Americas and Europe led year-on-year gains with 3.4 per cent and 3.9 per cent respectively.

The airline also said it carried 6.1 per cent more passengers per kilometre, which outpaced the 2.8 per cent growth in capacity, measured in available seat kilometres.

Meanwhile, SilkAir carried 11.1 per cent more passengers per kilometre on-year, but lagged behind a 19.8 per cent jump in its growth capacity. This dragged SilkAir's passenger load factor down 6.0 percentage points to 77.1 per cent.

Overall cargo traffic (measured in freight-tonne-kilometres) was also down 8.0 per cent from the same time last year, while cargo capacity tumbled 9.0 per cent. The company said this caused the cargo load factor (CLF) to edge up by 0.8 percentage point.

With the exception of East Asia and the Americas, load factors were higher for all route regions.

CLF for the East Asia route region dipped 3.3 percentage points as demand failed to match capacity increases. The South West Pacific saw the biggest increase in CLF, bumping up 6.5 percentage points due to movement of seasonal perishables.

Still, things have been bumpy for the airline, which is often considered a bellwether for the entire service airline industry, as it implements a slew of cost cutting measures. Earlier this month, SIA asked its captains to volunteer for unpaid leave.

SOURCE

Good thing that there are still a lot of people taking SIA flights, bad thing is that this increase in load doesn't really translate into profits due to the high costs of operating the flights, mainly fuel, coupling with price promotions to compete with other airlines.

Once the fuel costs come down, SIA should be doing ok, and the pilots can come for work again.