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Driven by strong passenger growth, Singapore Airlines and Scoot have left the pandemic behind and are operating nearly with high load factors.
Hopefully, there have been a few champagne corks popped at Singapore Airlines' headquarters this week, as after a few years of heartache and so much determined effort, the group has, for the second month, surpassed 2019 numbers. It has been a slow and steady recovery interspersed with inspired strategic routes and capacity choices that have seen the group emerge stronger than ever and with an extremely bright future ahead.
In February, the Singapore Airlines Group, which includes full-service carrier Singapore Airlines and low-cost dynamo Scoot, carried 3.06 million passengers at a load factor of 86.3%, close to 10% ahead of the 2.79 million it carried in February 2019. Even more remarkable is the year-on-year comparison to the 2.38 million it carried last year, which shows the group had increased passenger numbers by 28.2% in the intervening twelve months.
Digging a little deeper into the year-on-year (YoY) comparison, the results show that the Group's disciplined approach to adding capacity has paid off, with 2024 capacity, as measured by available seat kilometers, at 13,643.5 million compared to 11,302.1 million last year, while revenue passenger kilometers (RPKs) was 11,779 million this year compared to 9,782.7 million in 2023. That balance is an important metric and shows how the capacity growth (20.7%) is matched by a similar increase (20.4%) in demand.
Low-cost carrier Scoot has followed a similar approach but has been a little quicker in adding more routes, and the YoY results are proof of that successful strategy. In February 2023, Scoot carried 848,200 passengers at a load factor of 91.6%, and this year, that had jumped by 25.6% to 1.065 million at a load factor of 92.6%, which must surely rank as one of the most consistently high passenger load factors globally.
What Scoot has managed to do since the pandemic arrived is equally as remarkable, as it has grown passenger numbers from 827,000 at a load factor of 85.3% in 2019 to 1.06 million at 92.6% this year. It has grown its available seat capacity to 3,065 million and revenue passenger kilometers to 2,839.9 million while boosting the all-important passenger load factor into the 90%+ bracket.
While accurate aircraft numbers are always a moving target, the fleet data from ch-aviation shows that Scoot has 54 aircraft, although not all are listed as in service, including 18 Airbus A320-200s and 15 A320neos, while its widebody needs are taken care of by 11 Boeing 787-8 and 10 787-9 Dreamliners.
A strict comparison to pre-pandemic numbers is not accurate with Singapore Airlines as in 2019 the Group reported passenger and traffic numbers for SILKAIR separately. However in February 2024 Singapore Airlines (SIA) carried 1.99 million passengers at a load factor of 84.5%, compared to 1.537 million at 85.1% in February 2023, growing its passengers by 29.7% YoY.
An interesting aspect from the monthly report is how SIA's load factors differ from region to region, with clearly the highest returns coming from the South West Pacific, which include the highly popular and lucrative Australian and New Zealand markets. The regions and load factors for SIA are South West Pacific (92.4%), the Americas (83.1%), West Asia and Africa (82.9%), East Asia (82.4%) and Europe (81.6%).
During the pandemic, it was the switch to cargo flights that kept many airlines flying, but today that market has structurally changed. Singapore Airlines cargo carriage increased by 12.9% YoY, primarily due to stronger demand from e-commerce markets, which outpaced the capacity expansion of 7.4% from last year. This resulted in cargo load factors reaching 56.7%, 2.7 percentage points higher than in February 2023.
Sourced from Simply Flying
