Singapore Airlines Hit By Falling Passenger Carriage on Virus
Singapore Airlines Hit By Falling Passenger Carriage on Virus
(Bloomberg) --
Singapore Airlines Ltd. said passenger carriage tumbled last month as the fast-spreading coronavirus curbed travel demand, adding that market conditions continued to deteriorate in March.
Passenger carriage in revenue passenger-kilometres at SIA Group fell 17% year-on-year in February, it said in an exchange filing Monday. Capacity measured in available seat-kilometres dropped 2.4%, leading to a 12.1 percentage point decrease in passenger load factor to 69.1%.
“Travel demand is expected to weaken significantly in the near term,” the company said, citing the World Health Organization’s declaration of a COVID-19 pandemic and multiple countries issuing travel restrictions.
SIA Group has progressively announced flight cuts across its network since the start of February as it adjusts capacity to match demand changes arising from the global spread of the virus. Among the company’s units, regional airline SilkAir had the biggest drop in passenger traffic.
- Singapore Airlines, the flagship carrier, had a 12.5% drop in passenger carriage, against a 4.3% increase in capacity, leading to a 13 percentage-point drop in passenger load factor to 67.4%.
- SilkAir’s passenger carriage plunged 37.8%, while Scoot’s passenger carriage dropped 25.9%.
To contact the reporter on this story: Reinie Booysen in Singapore at rbooysen@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joyce Koh at jkoh38@bloomberg.net, Andrew Janes
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