For decades, the combination of Singapore Airlines and Singapore Changi Airport ruled Asian aviation. Their combined dominance turned Singapore into a super hub, as a parade of Boeing 747s and Airbus A380s brought thousands of passengers to the island state.
While the COVID-19 pandemic shattered aviation globally, it has had a longer and more profound impact on the Asia-Pacific region, where Singapore sits at the crossroads of Asia. Both the airline and airport have worked hard to keep the doors open during the pandemic, and now, with China reopened, it's time to start making up for the lost time.
Singapore Airlines Group has recovered to 80%
Yesterday, the Singapore Airlines Group, which includes Singapore Airlines and Scoot, released its January 2023 operating statistics. As expected, all the operating metrics are miles ahead of January 2022, with the group carrying 2.61 million passengers in January compared to 535,200 in 2022. In its release, the Group said:
"The Singapore Airlines Group continued to see strong passenger traffic and load factors across all route regions, including East Asia. The robust demand for air travel was boosted by the year-end peak return traffic and the Lunar New Year holiday season."
Despite the robust demand and the extra holiday traffic mentioned above, passengers carried in January actually fell by 2.7% compared to the previous month, December 2022. Passenger load factors also declined in January, falling from 89.7% in December to 86.9% in January.
Group capacity remained relatively constant, hovering around 80% of pre-COVID levels. On an individual airline basis, Singapore Airlines carried 1.689 million passengers in January, a 4.5% fall from December, and Scoot carried 926,800 compared to 920,300 in December.
At the end of January 2023, the Group's passenger network covered 112 destinations in 36 countries and territories. During January, Singapore Airlines and Scoot resumed services to Guangzhou (China) and Balikpapan (Indonesia), respectively, bringing Singapore Airlines' destinations to 77 and Scoot to 58.
Changi finished 2022 on a run
In 2022, Singapore Changi Airport (Changi) handled 32.2 million passenger movements and 219,000 aircraft movements. These were half of what it did in 2019, but the full-year numbers don't accurately depict where Changi is in its post-COVID recovery.
In 2019, Changi handled 68.3 million passenger movements, at a steady average of 5.69 million per month. In 2022 it handled 32.2 million, which averages at 2.68 million per month, or 47% of the pre-pandemic numbers. However, in the first half of last year, it handled 9.89 million while in the second half, which was when Asian borders started reopening, that jumped to 22.3 million at a monthly average of 3.72 million passengers.
Comparing those monthly averages shows that Changi had recovered to around 65% of 2019 levels in the second half of 2022. In December 2022, the airport handled 4.62 million passenger and 25,400 aircraft movements, compared to 6.41 million and 33,300, respectively, in 2019, putting its December recovery at 72%.
Changi's top five passenger markets for 2022 were Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia, India and Thailand. Looking at individual routes from Singapore, the top three were Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok and Jakarta, with the Singapore-Kuala Lumpur keeping its title as the world's busiest international route (based on seat capacity.)
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Among its top ten markets, a standout was South Korea which saw passenger traffic grow beyond pre-COVID levels in December 2022. The airport attributed this to increased capacity being loaded by existing partners and the arrival of new airlines T'way Air and Air Premia on the Singapore-Seoul route and from Scoot's new route to Jeju.
The airport added seven new passenger airlines in 2022: Aircalin, Bamboo Airways, Cambodia Airways, Citilink, HK Express, Thai VietJet Air and T'way Air. It started in 2023 with 96 airlines operating more than 5,600 weekly scheduled flights. These connected Singapore to 143 cities in 48 countries and territories worldwide, which is 82% of the airport's pre-COVID connectivity.
All this can be summed up by saying that Singapore Airlines Group was around 80% and Changi Airport around 72% of pre-pandemic capacity at the end of 2022. With China now well and truly open for (aviation) business, these figures should climb quite quickly in the coming months, although neither airline nor airport has made any predictions about when they will reach 100% of 2019 levels.
When do you think Singapore Airlines and Changi Airport will reach 100%? Let us know your month in the comments.