SIA struggles in tough times
17 / 03 / 2016
Singapore Airlines Cargo (SIA Cargo) had another difficult month in February, if its recently released traffic figures are anything to go by.
Capacity, as measured in available tonne-km, rose 4.9% year on year to 804.6m, while flown cargo as measured in freight tonne-km was down 2.3% year on year to 474.7m. As a result, the freight load factor fell 4.3 percentage points to 59%.
In volume terms, SIA carried 85,000 tonnes of freight in February, up 0.2% on the same month of 2015.
Broken down by region, only the west Asia and Africa market painted a healthy picture, with SIA Cargo’s freight load factor on that sector rising by 3.4 percentage points year on year to reach 67.6%.
All other markets saw declines in the load factor, evidence perhaps of the overcapacity that exists on so many air cargo routes today.
The Asia Pacific airfreight market has struggled for some time now, with little sign of the industry being able to overcome that problem of overcapacity, a challenge only exacerbated by international trade flow trends not favouring the region at the moment.
