SIA

SIA: Feb operating results.
In Feb 2012, co recorded 6.8% yoy growth in passenger carriage while capacity grew 5.4%. Consequently, passenger load factor improved 1.0% point to 76.1%. No. of passengers carried for Feb increased by 6.5% yoy to 1.4m. Improvement in load factors was attributed to the Singapore Airshow held between 14 and 19 February 2012. This was however, partially offset by a lull in after the CNY holidays. Operating environment remains challenging with jet fuel prices increasing 14% over the same mth last year.
Cargo traffic in Feb was 7.1% yoy higher while cargo capacity increased by 6.9%. Consequently, cargo load factor increased by 0.1% point. Cargo load factor increased for all regions, except for Europe and West Asia & Africa. Note this follows a decline in cargo capacity in Jan.
SilkAir’s passenger carriage increased 14.4% yoy against 19.3% growth in capacity. As a result, PLF declined 3.2 percentage points to 73.9%. Owing to shift of CNY holidays from Feb in the previous year to Jan this year, PLF for the East Asia routes declined 5.3% points.
JP Morgan maintains Overweight with TP$14.00 and notes that though traffic growth was weaker than Cathay’s, load factors held up better for both passenger and cargo business.