SIA cuts back US freighter capacity
Singapore Airlines (SIA) reported a 2.4 per cent year-on-year growth in system-wide passenger carriage (measured in revenue passenger kilometres) for March, while capacity (measured in available seat kilometres) grew by 4.5 per cent. This resulted in a decline in the passenger load factor (PLF) of 1.6 percentage points to 80.8 per cent. The number of passengers carried rose by 2.3 per cent over the same month last year to 1.66 million.PLFs for East Asia, Americas, Europe, and West Asia and Africa regions all recorded declines, largely due to capacity introduced to these regions not being fully met by increases in traffic. Some softening in demand also contributed to the lower PLF in the Americas route region.
Cargo load factor remained unchanged, with both overall cargo traffic (measured in freight tonne kilometres) and capacity declining by 4.9 per cent. A spokesperson for SIA Cargo said the reduction in capacity was mainly due to a reduction in freighter services to the Americas. The carrier cancelled its New York B747-400 freighter service in February. Cargo traffic in the other regions showed improvement except for South West Pacific including Australia and New Zealand.
