December 1st 2021

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February

There was a flood of industry red ink this month as airlines across the region announced their latest financial results. Read More »

Singapore Airlines (SIA) reported a S$142 million (US$105 million) net loss for the three months to December 31, 2020. While there had been a quarter-on-quarter increase in capacity and passenger numbers, SIA said operating conditions remained severely constrained due to border controls and travel restrictions. To illustrate its point, revenue fell 76.1% year-on-year in the quarter.

Later in the month, SIA said it had reached agreements with Airbus and Boeing to defer aircraft deliveries originally scheduled in the 2020/2021 to 2022/2023 financial years to later in the decade, saving about S$4 billion in capital expenditure in the period. The airline group also converted orders for 14 787-10s to 11 777-9Xs.

In Australia, Qantas Group CEO, Alan Joyce, handed down an A$1.1 billion net loss for the second half of 2020 and said the impact of COVID-19 had on the world and on aviation was “clearly worse than anyone expected”. Nonetheless, Joyce struck an optimistic note by foreshadowing Qantas and Jetstar would be returning to international flying by October and added work on restructuring the airline group during the pandemic meant the company would be able to “repair itself much faster than a pre-COVID Qantas Group could”.

Turning to Japan, flag carrier, Japan Airlines (JAL), said it would be difficult to foresee demand recovering while the global spread of COVID-19 showed no sign of slowdown. The oneworld alliance member reported a 212.7 billion yen quarterly loss and downgraded earnings guidance for its fiscal 2021 financial year to March 31. JAL said passenger demand was tipped to remain at current levels until the end of 2021.

There was no New Year bounce for carriers in Mainland China this month, reported the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC). China’s airlines carried 3.57 million passengers during the traditional seven-day Lunar New Year holiday, down 45.2% from the same period in 2020 and 71.2% below 2019 levels.

Airbus said at its 2020 financial results presentation in Amsterdam it expected to deliver the same number of commercial aircraft in the current year as it did in 2019, when 566 Airbus aircraft were handed to their new owners. The aerospace giant posted a net loss of 1.1 billion Euros for 2020, with revenue down 29% and net commercial orders at 268 aircraft.