Singapore Airlines Group's passenger load factor (PLF) improved by 4.6 percentage points to 82.7 percent in June. According to the latest operational performance statistics released by SIA Group, passenger carriage increased by 8.6 percent compared to last year, outpacing capacity expansion of 2.7 percent.
Passenger carriage is measured in revenue passenger kilometres whilst the capacity is calculated in available seat kilometres.
For Singapore Airlines (SIA), passenger carriage increased by 5.4 percent compared to the previous year. This is against the 0.9 percent contraction in capacity. Meanwhile, PLF expanded to 82.7 percent due to the higher passenger carriage is seen in all regions, particularly on routes to Australia.
"The restructuring of the Americas network, and the increase in passenger volume across all routes in West Asia and Africa, also led to higher PLFs in the respective regions. The competitive landscape remains challenging and promotional efforts will continue in relevant markets," SIA noted in a statement.
Meanwhile, SilkAir's system-wide passenger carriage reflected a 23.9 percent improvement, surpassing the 14.3 percent capacity growth. This has led to the improvement in SilkAir's PLF to 73.8 percent. The positive figures for the month are due to the robust growth in demand which exceeded capacity injections across East and West Asia.
Budget Aviation Holdings (BAH) recorded a 17.8 percent growth in systemwide passenger carriage. This outpaced the capacity expansion of 14.7 percent. Consequently, PLF grew to 85.8 percent. The demand on routes to Thailand, India and Australia, as well as fifth freedom routes to North Asia, continued to improve in the said month. Additionally, BAH launched its maiden European long-haul service to Athens.
SIA indicated that overall cargo load factor was () was 4.5 percentage points higher with growth in cargo traffic of 7.2 percent. This came as with the 0.2 percent capacity reduction. Improvements in CLF were seen across all region as demand outpaced capacity changes.
