Singapore Airlines: SEPTEMBER 2012 OPERATING RESULTS

In September 2012, Singapore Airlines’ recorded 7.7% growth in system wide passenger carriage (measured in revenue passenger kilometres) while capacity (measured in available seat kilometres) increased by 6.3%. Consequently, passenger load factor (PLF) improved by 1.0 percentage point to 80.6%. The number of passengers carried increased by 6.1% to 1.5 million.

System wide PLF improved on the back of strong summer travel demand, especially on long haul sectors for Americas and Europe route regions. PLF for the East Asia route region declined as growth in demand was outpaced by the increase in capacity. Passenger yields are likely to continue to come under pressure as a result of promotional activities.

SilkAir’s system wide passenger carriage increased 13.9% year-on-year against 18.4% growth in capacity. As a result, PLF was 2.8 percentage points lower at 68.9%. PLF for East Asia and Pacific routes declined 4.5 percentage points as the growth in traffic lagged that of capacity increases. In some Asian markets, the shift in the Lebaran holidays from September last year to August this year had resulted in a decline in outbound travel demand during the month.

Overall cargo traffic (measured in freight-ton-kilometres) was 4.2% lower year-on-year, while cargo capacity decreased by 4.8%. Consequently, cargo load factor (CLF) increased by 0.4 of a percentage point. CLF increased for all route regions, except for East Asia and the Americas, through a better match of capacity with demand.