SIA spends last cash from rights issue, says August pax capacity ‘steady’

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APAS Aircraft Storage Alice Springs
Airlines like Singapore Airlines are bringing planes out of storage as traffic improves with the removal of some COVID restrictions. (PHOTO: Steve Strike/Outback Photographics)

Flag carrier Singapore Airlines (SIA) said on 16 September that it has exhausted the S$8.8 billion in gross proceeds raised from its rights issue in June last year, with the last S$0.6 billion having been used for aircraft and aircraft-related payments between 1 July and 1 September. In a filing to the Singapore Exchange, the airline said that the net proceeds of S$6.2 billion from the issuance of additional mandatory convertible bonds (MCBs) in June this year had yet to be utilised. SIA said it has also raised S$21.6 billion in fresh liquidity since 1 April 2020. The group added that in addition to the cash on hand, it continues to retain access to S$2.1 billion of committed lines of credit that are currently undrawn.

As far as the 2020 rights issue goes, SIA spent the proceeds of S$8.8 billion between 8 June 2020 and 1 September 2021. SIA had used S$2 billion of the proceeds for the repayment of a bridge loan from DBS, which was set up in April 2020 to provide the liquidity required by SIA for the completion of the rights issue in 2020.

SIA also said the group’s passenger capacity (measured in available seat-kilometres) remained steady month-on-month at around 32 percent of pre-COVID-19 levels in August 2021, while passenger traffic (revenue passenger-kilometres) grew 7.4 percent. As a result, the group registered a passenger load factor (PLF) of 17.5 percent, 1.2 percentage points higher than the prior month, but 1.3 percentage points lower year-on-year.

SIA Cargo registered a monthly cargo load factor (CLF) of 87.6 percent, up 5.8 percentage points year-on-year as cargo loads (freight tonne-kilometres) rose by 56.2 percent on the back of a 46 percent capacity (capacity tonne-kilometres) expansion. East Asia, Americas, and West Asia, and Africa route regions recorded year-on-year increases in CLF during the month.

At the end of August 2021, the SIA group’s passenger network covered 67 destinations including Singapore. The Singapore Airlines full-service network remained unchanged from the month before with 531 destinations.

Scoot, SIA’s low-cost carrier subsidiary, served 251 destinations as at end of August. The airline’s Berlin service was reinstated in August, while Nanjing was temporarily suspended due to airport closure. The low-cost carrier’s operations to West Asia remained suspended.

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