Tiger Airways Holdings enjoyed a significantly stronger year-on-year boost in loads and passenger numbers in December last year, as it recovered from a difficult 2011.
The latest operating statistics show that the budget carrier appears to be on a steady growth trajectory, filling almost more than 85 per cent of its seats systemwide.
Tiger Singapore's passenger numbers grew 22 per cent to 800 million revenue passenger-kilometres (RPK) in December 2012, on the back of a 15 per cent increase in capacity to 904 million available seat-kilometres (ASK).
As a result, its year-on-year passenger load factor rose 6 percentage points to 89 per cent as the number of passengers carried grew 19 per cent to 436,000 passengers.
The recovery was even more impressive in Australia, where Tiger Australia enjoyed a 90 per cent surge in traffic to 268 million RPK in December 2012.
However, these year-on-year improvements were also boosted by the fact that the budget carrier was operating at a significantly reduced capacity and on a limited schedule in December 2011, following the debilitating groundings in July and August. Passenger load factor slipped two percentage points to 79 per cent as more seats were added.
At the group level, Tiger filled 86 per cent of its seats in December, up from 83 per cent a year earlier.
For the 12 months, Tiger Singapore recorded a 19 per cent increase in traffic to 7.6 billion RPK, on the back of a 17 per cent increase in capacity to 9.1 billion ASK.
Passenger load factor for the year was 83 per cent, up one percentage point from the previous corresponding period. The number of passengers carried grew 12 per cent to 4.2 million.
In Australia, Tiger recorded a 11 per cent increase in traffic to 2.2 billion RPK for the 12 months, following a 14 per cent increase in capacity to three billion ASK.
Passenger load factor was 82 per cent, down two percentage points from 2010. The number of passengers carried grew 6 per cent to 2.1 million.
Tiger Holdings is planning to divest itself of 60 per cent of Tiger Australia to Virgin Australia for A$35 million (S$45.3 million), though the deal still has to be approved by Australian regulators.
Meanwhile, Tiger continues to enjoy a steady recovery from a disastrous 2011 and has charted its regional expansion with purchases of stakes in existing players in Indonesia (Mandala) and the Philippines (SeAir), even as it plans its scaleback in Australia.
The airline's stock has also started showing signs of recovery amid more positive calls by several leading analysts.
It closed half a cent up at 75 cents last Friday.
SOURCE
The days ahead are looking real good for low cost carrier Tiger Airways. It has been a remarkable turnaround in fortunes after the disastrous grounding in 2011. With a change of the big heads in the management level, Tiger has started to roar again.
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