SIA, Scoot passenger traffic down 0.8% in March on Easter holiday shift

[SINGAPORE] Singapore Airlines (SIA) and its low-cost arm Scoot reported a 0.8 per cent year-on-year drop in combined passenger traffic in March, partly due to the shift in the Easter holiday from March in 2024 to April in 2025.

In particular, Scoot’s passenger traffic fell 5.5 per cent to 2.7 billion, while SIA’s was up 0.5 per cent to 9.9 billion, the national carrier said in an operating update on Tuesday (Apr 15).

Passenger traffic is derived by multiplying the number of passengers carried with distance flown in kilometres.

The two airlines carried a combined total of 3.3 million passengers in March, 0.8 per cent higher than the same period last year. 

The group’s passenger capacity, which is measured by multiplying the number of seats available on a flight by the distance flown, grew 2.7 per cent.

Its passenger load factor was 84.7 per cent, down 3 percentage points on the year. The parameter reflects the available seating capacity filled with passengers, and how efficiently an airline is filling its seats.

“Cargo carriage increased by 7.6 per cent year on year, driven by some front-loading in anticipation of uncertainty in the global trade environment, particularly within the East Asia region where load factors rose by 4.4 percentage points,” said the group.

It added that weaker cargo demand in the Americas and Europe limited the overall cargo load increase to 2 per cent. “This was below the 7.7 per cent capacity increase, resulting in the cargo load factor dropping by 3.1 percentage points to 56.9 per cent.”

Scoot suspended services to Berlin as part of a regular review of its overall network in March.

As at end-March, the group’s passenger network covered 128 destinations in 36 countries and territories. Its cargo network comprised 132 destinations in 37 countries and territories.

Shares of SIA closed Tuesday up 1.4 per cent or S$0.09 at S$6.30.