Aviation

Singapore Airlines reports $ 253 million profit in Q1

The SIA Group earned a net profit of $253 million from April to June 2010. This was a turnaround of $560 million from the loss of $307 million recorded in the same quarter a year ago.

Group revenue at $3,466 million grew 20.7 percent (+$594 million), reflecting the recovery in load factors and yields.

Group expenditure also increased year-on-year but at a slower rate of 0.8% (+$24 million). This was due mainly to higher expenditure on fuel (+$313 million or +42.4 percent), partially offset by smaller loss from fuel hedging ($78 million this year versus $287 million last year), as well as other non-fuel expenditure savings of $80 million.

Group operating profit for the quarter was $251 million, a turnaround of $570 million from the $319 million operating loss last year.

The Parent Airline Company earned an operating profit of $136 million in the first quarter of the 2010-11 financial year, in contrast to the operating loss of $271 million last year.

All the main companies in the Group were profitable during the period and performed better year-on-year.

The Parent Airline Company carried 4.0 million passengers during the quarter, a year-on-year increase of 5.5 percent. Capacity (in available seat-kilometres) was practically unchanged from last year while passenger carriage (in revenue passenger-kilometres) was 8.8 percent higher.

Consequently, passenger load factor improved 6.8 percentage points to 78.4 percent.

Passenger breakeven load factor at 76.9 percent, was lower by 7.4 percentage points year-on-year, as passenger yield recovered by 14.7 percent.

SIA Cargo's freight traffic (in load tonne-kilometres) for the first quarter was up 12.1 percent year-on-year, against capacity growth (in capacity tonne-kilometres) of 4.5 percent. As a result, cargo load factor rose 4.4 percentage points to 65.0 percent.

Cargo yield improved 42.3 percent compared to the same period in the preceding year. With unit cost increasing at a slower pace (+10.9%), cargo breakeven load factor fell 17.1 percentage points to 60.5 percent.

In the April - June 2010 quarter, the company took delivery of four A330-300s and decommissioned six B777s (four for lease and two for sale). As at June 30, 2010, the operating fleet comprised 106 passenger aircraft - seven B747-400s, sixty-nine B777s, fifteen A330-300s, ten A380-800s and five A340-500s - with an average age of six years and one month.

Dubai Airport traffic tops 22.5 m

Dubai International notched up a solid first half with Dubai Airports announcing year-to-date (June) passenger traffic of 22,554,445, compared to 19,397,089 in the corresponding period in 2009, an increase of 16.3 per cent.

This follows Dubai Internationals twelve consecutive months of double-digit growth in passenger traffic from June 2009 to May 2010.

Dubai International handled a total of 3,684,192 passengers in June 2010 compared to 3,361,413 in June 2009, a growth of 9.6 per cent.

The average monthly passenger traffic in the first half this year stands at 3.7 million as compared to 3.1 million during the corresponding period in 2009.

The year to date daily average passenger throughput at Dubai International has reached 123,000.

Cargo continued its upward trend throughout the first half ending with a year to date movement of 1,101,856 tonnes of freight compared to 874,828 tonnes during the same period in 2009, an increase of 26 per cent.

Dubai International handled a total of 184,576 tonnes of cargo in June 2010, up 21.2 per cent compared to 152,258 tonnes in June 2009.

Commenting on the report, Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths, noted that the growth in passenger traffic and cargo volumes is a sign of improving economic situation around the world.