Singapore Airlines August passenger carriage up 3%
Yet the airline’s overall traffic in its cargo declined by 0.1%.
In August 2011, Singapore Airlines’ systemwide passenger carriage (measured in revenue passenger kilometers) increased 3.0% on the back of 5.1% growth in capacity (measured in available seat kilometres). Passenger load factor (PLF) fell 1.5 percentage points to 76.6%. The number of passengers carried rose 2.2% to 1.4 million.
The increase in capacity outpaced demand growth for most route regions, particularly the Americas. Loads for West Asia and Africa were also soft, due to traditionally lower volumes of travel during the fasting month of Ramadan.
SilkAir’s capacity grew 10.0% year-on-year against a 6.5% increase in systemwide passenger carriage. As a result, PLF decreased 2.3 percentage points to 70.2%. The number of passengers carried increased 8.8%.
In August 2011, SilkAir started four times weekly services to Kolkata, the capital city of the state of West Bengal, in tandem with SIA’s three times weekly services. In addition, to cater to increased travel demand during the Muslim holiday of Idul Fitri, supplementary flights to Surabaya, Medan and Palembang were mounted in late August, according to a Songapore Airlines report.
SIA Cargo's overall traffic (measured in freight tonne kilometres) saw a year-on-year decline of 0.1% while capacity increased 0.2%. Consequently, the overall load factor dropped by 0.2 percentage points. Cargo load factor (CLF) improved for all regions, except for East Asia and West Asia & Africa.