NEW YORK, September 15, 2017 – The operating results for August 2017 are given in the table below.

In August 2017, SIA Group airlines' passenger load factor (PLF) improved 1.2 percentage points to 80.9%. Passenger carriage (measured in revenue passenger kilometres) increased 5.1% compared to last year, outpacing capacity (measured in available seat kilometres) injection of 3.5%.

Singapore Airlines' PLF improved 0.4 percentage points to 80.4%. Passenger carriage increased 0.8% compared to last year, against a 0.4% rise in capacity. Stronger passenger demand to Asia, restructuring of the Americas network, and capacity adjustments to Europe led to stronger PLFs for these route regions. PLF declined for the South West Pacific route region as passenger growth did not keep up with capacity injection. The operating landscape remains challenging with ongoing efforts to balance yields against competitive pressures.

SilkAir’s systemwide passenger carriage grew 25.6% year-on-year, surpassing capacity growth of 17.6%. Consequently, PLF improved by 4.8 percentage points to 75.8%, led by strong growth in demand in India, Maldives, China and South East Asia.

Scoot recorded passenger carriage growth of 17.7%, exceeding capacity expansion of 12.6%. Consequently, PLF went up by 3.6 percentage points to 84.8%, boosted by improvements in all route regions. Demand on selected routes to India, Bangladesh and South East Asia continued to improve. During the month, Scoot took delivery of its third 787-8 aircraft fitted with crew rest bunks, for long-haul services, which led to a wide-body fleet of 15 aircraft compared to 12 a year ago.

Overall cargo load factor (CLF) was 2.9 percentage points higher, with growth in cargo traffic (measured in freight-tonne-kilometres) of 4.5% against capacity reduction of 0.3%. CLF improved across all regions except Europe, which remained stable, as demand outpaced capacity changes.