SQ says losses narrow, but now nearly half a billion in the red

Singapore Airlines has Wednesday announced that it managed to narrow its losses in the second financial quarter to SIN159 million, but add this to the first quarter and the accumulated figure of SIN466 million is a little more startling.

Heading full throttle towards its first financial year loss since 1985, Singapore Airlines reported that total revenue only reached SIN3.08 billion or 30% less than the SIN4.38billion achieved in 2008.

For the six months ending September, Singapore Airlines accumulated revenue of  SIN5.95 billion, compared to SIN8.51 billion achieved in the first financial half of 2008, proving that its dramatic cost-cutting is definitely hurting yields.

In its outlook the carrier notes that these figures, which were better than the first quarter?s results, show that the market is ready to rebound.

?Advance bookings indicate that demand for air travel has stopped declining and is gradually recovering,? said Singapore Airlines.

?The capacity programmed for the remainder of the year appears well matched to the demand. The market conditions allow for some rollback of promotional pricing but yields are unlikely to get back to pre-crisis levels within the next six months.?

In the three month from July to September, Singapore Airlines carried 4.2 million passengers, 14% less than a year earlier, while capacity measured in ASK dropped by 12%, resulting in a slight lifting of seat load factors to 79.6% by 0.5%.

Sourced = The e Travel Blackboard