Summary
- Key takeaways:
- Singapore Airlines Group is experiencing a textbook recovery, with consistently increasing passenger numbers and cargo aspects.
- In November, the group reported a combined passenger load factor of 87.8%, with Scoot achieving 90.8% and Singapore Airlines reaching 86.9%.
- Singapore Airlines is performing particularly well within the South West Pacific region with a load factor of 93.2%. Scoot has also seen significant growth, carrying 31.1% more passengers than in 2022.
Thailand is generally known as the ‘but after turning in one other strong month, the Singapore Airlines Group team would also feel pretty completely satisfied about their prospects for 2024 and the busy Lunar Recent 12 months holiday season.
A textbook recovery by Singapore Airlines Group
The Group’s two operating airlines, Singapore Airlines and Scoot, have consistently lifted their passenger numbers and cargo aspects for many of this 12 months in a gradual progression towards full post-pandemic recovery early in 2024. In November, that progress continued, and while passenger volumes could also be improving it’s the load aspects that actually stand out.
Photo: Bradley Caslin | Shutterstock
Last month, the Singapore Airlines Group reported a combined passenger load factor of 87.8%, with Scoot logging 90.8% and Singapore Airlines 86.9%. In pre-pandemic November 2019, the Group reached 84.9%, Scoot 86.7% and Singapore Airlines 84.7%, which really highlights how disciplined each airlines have been when restoring capability on this recovery period.
Looking more broadly at performance, the combined Group carried 3.1 million passengers in November, 28.6% ahead of last 12 months but lower than the three.27 million in 2019. The Group has now recovered to 95% of pre-COVID capability, and with lower than 200,000 passengers to makeup, the upcoming holiday season will likely blow most of that lingering deficit away.
The explanation the load aspects are so high is that in November the airlines grew revenue passenger kilometers (RPKs) by 17.6% while constraining available seat kilometers (ASKs) to growth of just 15.1%. Individually, Singapore Airlines carried 2.06 million passengers, a year-on-year growth of 27.3% over the 1.62 million in 2022, while also lifting load aspects from 86.1% last 12 months to 86.9% in 2023.
A regional perspective
In regional load factor terms, Singapore Airlines is doing best within the South West Pacific with 93.2%, which is one other significant achievement on condition that the airline operates around 140 weekly services between Singapore and Australia.
Photo: The Global Guy | Shutterstock.
That may be a massive amount of A350, 777 and A380 seats to fill, so to have loads above 93% shows how well the full-service airline is performing. The opposite regions and their load aspects are East Asia (87.0%), The Americas (86.8%), West Asia and Africa (85.3%) and Europe (82.0%).
Low-cost subsidiary Scoot is de facto powering through its comeback and carried 1.04 million passengers in November, 31.1% greater than in 2022 and, more tellingly, 10% or nearly 100,000 greater than in November 2019. Scoot has also lifted its load factor by 4 percentage points in comparison with 2019 and 6 percentage points year-on-year by diligently managing capability with demand.
Photo: Scoot
Scoot breaks its network into three regions: East Asia, West Asia and the Remainder of the World. With China now fully reopened for inbound and outbound travel the largest year-on-year improvement has are available East Asia, where load aspects reached 89.3% last month in comparison with 78.0% in November 2022.
West Asia grew moderately from 86.4% to 89.1%, while the Remainder of the World, which incorporates Australia, actually dipped ever so barely from 96.4% in November 2022 to 96.3% last month, although that is still well ahead of the 90.5% recorded in November 2019.
In November, Singapore Airlines resumed services to Chongqing (China), taking the Group’s passenger network to 119 destinations in 35 countries and territories. At the top of the month, Singapore Airlines served 74 destinations, Scoot served 68 destinations, and the Cargo network comprised 124 destinations in 37 countries and territories.