SIA Group (SIA) has posted its highest full year operating and net profits in the Group's history as robust demand for air travel drives record passenger revenue and load factors. The demand for air travel remained buoyant throughout FY2023/24, boosted by a rebound in North Asia as China, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, and Taiwan fully reopened their borders. SIA and Scoot carried a combined 36.4 million passengers, up 37.6% year-on-year. Passenger traffic grew 26.6%, outpacing the capacity expansion of 22.9%. As a result, the Group passenger load factor (PLF) improved 2.6 percentage points to a record 88.0%. SIA and Scoot registered record PLFs of 87.1% and 91.2% respectively.
Group revenue rose by SG$1,238 million (7.0% year-on-year) to a record SG$19,013 million. Passenger flown revenue increased by SG$2,319 million (17.3%) to SG$15,685 million, despite a 7.6% decline in passenger yields. Cargo flown revenue fell by SG$1,485 million (41.2%) to SG$2,119 million. While cargo loads increased by 1.7% due to strong demand from the e-commerce segment, yields were 42.2% lower year-on-year but remained 29.8% above pre-pandemic levels.
Group expenditure increased by SG$1,202 million (8.0%) to SG$16,285 million. Non-fuel expenditure rose by SG$1,336 million (13.5%), partially offset by a SG$132 million decrease (2.5%) in net fuel cost. The increase in non-fuel expenditure was lower than the 16.0% increase in overall passenger and cargo capacity. Net fuel cost fell despite higher volumes uplifted (SG$918 million) and a lower fuel hedging gain (SG$358 million), mainly due to an 18.5% decrease in fuel prices (SG$1,281 million).
As a result, Group operating profit reached a record SG$2,728 million, up SG$36 million or 1.3% from the previous year. The Group's net profit improved by SG$518 million (24.0%) to SG$2,675 million. This was mainly due to better operating performance (SG$36 million), net interest income versus net finance charges a year before (SG$215 million), lower tax expense (SG$132 million), and a share of profits versus a share of losses from associated companies in the previous year (SG$104 million). (US$ = SG$ 1.35 at time of publication).
