Skip to main content

New! You can personalise your feed. Try it now

Advertisement

Advertisement

S'pore's air traffic rebounds to almost a third of pre-Covid levels, on track to hit 50 per cent in 2022: CAAS

SINGAPORE — Singapore's air traffic volume has reached almost a third of pre-Covid levels just over two weeks after the country removed most restrictions on air travel and is on track to reach 50 per cent later this year, said the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) in a statement on Monday (April 18).

S'pore's air traffic rebounds to almost a third of pre-Covid levels, on track to hit 50 per cent in 2022: CAAS
Follow TODAY on WhatsApp
  • Singapore's air traffic volume has reached almost a third of pre-Covid levels just over two weeks after the full reopening of Singapore's borders
  • Air traffic volume is on track to reach 50 per cent of those levels later this year, said the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore
  • There was particularly strong growth for traffic to and from Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand
  • SIA Group reported a "significant increase" in passenger demand for SIA and Scoot in March

SINGAPORE — Singapore's air traffic volume has reached almost a third of pre-Covid levels just over two weeks after the country removed most restrictions on air travel and is on track to reach 50 per cent later this year, said the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) in a statement on Monday (April 18).

The increase in air traffic since Singapore reopened its borders to fully vaccinated travellers at the start of April was recorded across all major markets, with particularly strong growth for traffic to and from Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, said the authority.

Direct traffic increased for both international and local travellers, with Singapore citizens and permanent residents making up close to a third of total direct traffic.

In all, air passenger traffic in Singapore reached 400,000 or 31 per cent of pre-Covid levels as of the week ending on Sunday, up from 18 per cent a month ago.

The number of passenger flights also increased to 38 per cent of pre-Covid levels, up from 29 per cent a month ago.

CAAS is working with the airport operator, aviation companies and unions to ramp up operations and manpower to support the higher traveller volumes.
CAAS director-general Han Kok Juan

In its statement, CAAS said that the frequency of flights to and from Australia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam “increased significantly”.

Three airlines — Air New Zealand, Myanmar Airways International and PT Batik Air Asia — restarted rescheduled passenger flights to Singapore, it noted.

Air links were also re-established with five new cities. They are Cairns in Australia, Danang in Vietnam, Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia, Madurai in India, and Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, said CAAS.

CAAS director-general Han Kok Juan said that he expects air traffic volume to increase further, especially during the upcoming long weekend over the public holidays for May Day and Hari Raya Puasa, as well as the June school holiday season.

May Day falls on May 1 while Hari Raya Puasa falls on May 3.

“CAAS is working with the airport operator, aviation companies and unions to ramp up operations and manpower to support the higher traveller volumes.

“We also advise travellers to come to the airport early and to cater more time for departure check-in and arrival baggage collection,” he added.

In its statement, CAAS added that it is working with the aviation community to increase operations and manpower to meet demand as air travel recovers this year and "to rebuild and reclaim Singapore’s position as a premier air hub".

To this end, CAAS said it will organise a careers promotion and recruitment event, titled “OneAviation Careers”, on May 27 and 28 at the Suntec City Convention Centre.

More than 15 aviation companies, such as Singapore Airlines and Rolls Royce, will be at the event to engage job seekers and students on career opportunities in the aviation sector.

SIGNIFICANT INCREASE IN PASSENGER DEMAND FOR SIA 

Separately, Singapore Airlines (SIA) Group reported a "significant increase" in passenger demand for both SIA and its budget airline arm Scoot for last month.

The increase was amid the easing of restrictions in almost all of its key markets and the increase in the Vaccinated Travel Lane quota for daily arrivals in Singapore, said the group, which published its operating results for March on Monday. 

The two airlines carried a total of 893,000 passengers in March, up from 544,600 in February.

Group passenger capacity, which is measured in available seat-kilometres, reached just over half of pre-Covid-19 levels in March and was up by 7 percentage points from February.

Group passenger load factor improved by 15.4 percentage points to almost 55 per cent, the highest since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.

At the end of March, the group’s passenger network covered 93 destinations including Singapore.

This was around two thirds of destinations served before the pandemic, said the group in its statement.

SIA said that it expects passenger capacity to reach around 61 per cent of pre-Covid levels by May this year.

Related topics

Changi Airport air traffic Covid-19 air travel Singapore Airlines

Read more of the latest in

Advertisement

Advertisement

Stay in the know. Anytime. Anywhere.

Subscribe to get daily news updates, insights and must reads delivered straight to your inbox.

By clicking subscribe, I agree for my personal data to be used to send me TODAY newsletters, promotional offers and for research and analysis.