Singapore Airlines, the world’s second-biggest carrier by market value said its overall load factor in March increased to 72.9% from 62.6% a year earlier as it carried more passengers and cargo.

SIA said systemwide passenger carriage (measured in revenue passenger kilometres) recorded an increase of 13.9% in March over the same month last year, with the number of passengers carried increasing by 9.5% to 1.4 million. Passenger load factor (PLF) increased 11.4 percentage points to 80.8% on the back of a capacity (measured in available seat kilometres) reduction of 2.2%.

The year-on-year reduction in capacity arose from the planned reduction in frequencies, termination of services to Vancouver (via Incheon) and to Pakistan, and the transfer of Hyderabad and Penang operations to SilkAir.

All regions recorded significant improvements in PLFs over the same month last year. The shift in the Easter holiday from the month of April in 2009 to March this year resulted in increased travel demand during this period.

Systemwide cargo capacity was reduced by 4.2%, while cargo traffic (measured in freight tonne kilometres) improved by 12.0%. Consequently, overall load factor in March improved by 9.9 percentage points. Cargo load factor improved for all regions except for South West Pacific. The improvement in CLFs was mainly due to strategic management of freight capacity to match market demand, as well as the improving operating environment.