Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Singapore Airlines full-year results media and analyst briefing. My name is Siva, and I'm from the Singapore Airlines Public Affairs Department. Very happy to see everyone again this morning. For those who are familiar, we'll go through the usual program, the format rather. We'll first have Jo-Ann Tan, our CFO, come up to talk about the full-year results. We'll then have Goh Choon Phong, our CEO, to talk about the outlook and the strategy. So without any further ado, can I invite Jo-Ann, please? Thank you.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for taking the time to attend our analysts and media briefing. Okay, so to start, let me just go through some of the key takeaways, and you have seen this in our news release. For the year 2023/24, we achieved our highest-ever operating record of SGD 2.73 billion, exceeding last year's previous record. Passenger revenue rose SGD 2.3 billion. Cargo revenue fell SGD 1.5 billion, largely on the back of lower yields. Our net fuel costs fell largely due to lower fuel prices, despite higher volumes uplifted. For the full year, we achieved a record net profit of SGD 2.67 billion, SGD 518 million higher than a year ago. This was driven by items after the operating line, but more of that later. I will not cover the outlook and our strategies in response to that because CEO will give you a comprehensive update later.
Subject to shareholders' approval, we have proposed a final dividend of SGD 0.38, to be paid on the 21st of August. Together with our SGD 0.10 interim dividend, this represents a total dividend of SGD 0.48, a dividend yield of 7.5%, referencing a SGD 6.40 closing share price as at 31st of March, which is the last day of a financial year. Now, onto the numbers. SIA Group passenger capacity recovery continues, with second-half ASK growth of 17.7%. For the full year, our ASK grew almost 23%. Looking at group financial results, full-year increased capacity and the robust passenger demand led us to a full-year operating revenue of SGD 19 billion. This is SGD 1.2 billion higher than a year ago. Expenses increased 8%, trailing capacity increase of 16%, mainly on account of lower fuel, but more on that later.
Ex-fuel expenses were up 13.5%, lower than the capacity increase of 16%, so all-in operating performance improved SGD 35 million versus last year. For the second-half, revenue continued its growth trajectory of 5.3% to hit SGD 9.85 billion. This is actually a record for half-yearly revenue for the group. Our total expense grew 9.8%. Fuel cost was up 11.1%, whereas ex-fuel expense was up 9.2%. Both were below the capacity increase of 12.6%. As a result, second-half operating profit crossed the SGD 1 billion mark, coming in at SGD 1.17 billion. Looking at group revenue, second-half passenger revenue grew SGD 750 million on the back of a 17.5% growth in passenger carriage, offset by a 6% yield decline from increased competition. Higher passenger revenue was partially offset by the SGD 446 million decline in cargo, mainly coming from yield declines as more belly-hold capacity returned.
For the full year, passenger revenue was up SGD 2.3 billion on the back of a very robust 26.6% growth in passenger carriage, partially offset by 7.6% yield declines. Cargo revenue came in at SGD 2.1 billion, which was 41% lower, almost entirely due to weaker yields. But notwithstanding this decline, if you compare cargo revenue with pre-COVID, our cargo revenue was still 8.6% higher. Looking at our group airlines operating stats, we saw very robust passenger demand consistently across the full year, and the group achieved a record load factor of 88%. Individually, both the FSC and LCC achieved respective load factor records for the full year. FSC load factor came in at 87.1%, a record. LCC came in at 91.2%, another record. Driven by yield declines, both airlines saw their declines in RASK, which is really a measure of revenue per available seat kilometer.
If you compare this with our pre-COVID performance, the RASK for both the FSC and LCC is still tracking over 20% above our pre-COVID levels. Moving on to cargo. In the second half, cargo loads grew 9.7% year-on-year. This is on account of robust e-commerce flows and supported by a lift in air freight coming from the security concerns in the Red Sea. Looking at quarter four, which is seasonally weaker quarter for cargo, our loads grew 16.1% year-on-year, pushing cargo load factors up 3.5 percentage points compared to a year ago. Group expense. Expenditure grew 9.8% in the second half and 8% on a full-year basis. Both were slower than tracked capacity growth. Now, if we look at the breakdown of our major cost components, fuel cost was lower by 2.5% despite higher volumes. I will elaborate more in the next slide. Other cost components.
Staff cost. It increased 16.2% year-on-year, mainly due to higher pay and allowances from higher staff strength and average pay, the absence of payroll-related government grants. Crew allowances also grew in line with the increase in flying. Depreciation and lease aircraft charges increased 3.8% because of higher depreciation from heavy maintenance and engine overhauls, as well as additional depreciation from aircraft deliveries within the financial year. Passenger costs increased more than the increase in passenger carriage as we continue to improve our product offering, particularly in-flight meals and product enhancements such as the provision of free Wi-Fi to our KF members. Other cost categories you see here largely increased in line with capacity or with the traffic carriage. Looking at unit costs excluding fuel across our group airlines and measured in cents per CTK, we were marginally lower by 0.2% year-on-year.
This is the story of fuel. Fuel prices were lower by 18.2%, and this decrease more than offset the increased costs from higher fuel volume and lower hedging gains. The table you see in the slide below shows our average fuel price before and after hedging. Looking forward, we are continuing to hedge on a declining wedge basis over a rolling 18-month period, as you can see in the first table. The second table shows the gains from our closed-out trades that we have taken for ineffective hedges. Group operating profit. For the second half, operating profit crossed the SGD 1 billion mark to achieve SGD 1.17 billion. Together with the record first-half performance, operating profit rose SGD 35 million to hit our record SGD 2.73 billion for the full year.
If we just do a tear down, our operating profit improvement was primarily due to higher passenger revenue and lower net fuel costs, which partially offset the lower cargo revenue and higher expenditure. For the financial year, we also benefited from a non-cash forex gain of SGD 37 million, reversing the loss of about SGD 200 million from the year ago. Now, if we look at the operating performance for the main companies within the group, the FSC operating profit for the parent airline at SGD 2.6 billion is a record for us, higher by SGD 34 million. LCC operating performance, albeit lower SGD 30 million year-on-year, but with the operating profit coming in at SGD 118 million, this is still a very credible performance. SIAEC swung from an operating loss of SGD 26 million to an operating gain of SGD 2.3 million this year from more maintenance activities from an increase in flying.
Looking at net line, second-half net profit of SGD 1.23 billion was marginally higher than last year. On a full-year basis, the group bettered their performance to achieve SGD 2.7 billion, SGD 518 million higher compared to last year. This shows a tear down of the contribution. The improvement came primarily from items after the operating line. We had a net interest income against net finance charges last year, lower tax expense, and share of profits of associated companies against loss last year. If I can expand on the tax expense, tax expenses fell despite an increase in profit before tax, largely due to a recognition of prior year unutilized tax losses by Scoot, a reversal of deferred tax liabilities associated with engine credits, and a swing to non-taxable capital exchange gains recorded this year from non-deductible capital exchange losses last year.
As I mentioned at the start, subject to shareholders' approval, we are proposing final dividend of SGD 0.38. Together with interim dividend of SGD 0.10, total dividend for the year would be SGD 0.48. Balance sheet. Just to point out, as at 31st of March, group shareholder equity was lower by SGD 3.5 billion compared to last year, and this is coming from the partial redemption of SGD 5.1 billion of MCBs, including accrued yield. Total debt balance also decreased SGD 1.9 billion to SGD 13.4 billion because we have repaid some of our borrowings. So as at 31st of March of 2024, our group's debt equity ratio is now 0.82. Cash and cash balance also decreased SGD 5 billion, from the following activities: redemption of MCBs, repayment of borrowings, and payment of dividend. But we had a very strong cash generation from operations this year at SGD 5.1 billion, which mitigated some of the decrease.
Overall position at the end of the financial year at SGD 11.3 billion is still very strong. We have also announced yesterday that we will be making a full redemption of the remaining MCBs in June. The accreted principal amount of this is SGD 1.74 billion. With this final redemption, all SGD 9.7 billion worth of MCBs that we issued in 2020 and 2021 during COVID will be fully redeemed, marking a very strong recovery from COVID. This is sharing our group operating fleet plan. for the next for the coming financial year, there are 16 planned deliveries versus 7 retirements from operating fleet, adding 9 aircraft units to the fleet. Now, this is based on contractual, delivery positions. And finally, my last slide, this is the projected group CapEx, for the next 5 years, fairly similar to what we last shown you, in this in the second-half, briefing.
Okay, that's my last slide. With that, can I invite our CEO, Mr. Goh? Thank you.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Again, welcome to join us at this media briefing, media and analyst briefing. I will touch on two key points. You would recall that during the COVID period, we emphasized that we wanted to emerge stronger. By emerging stronger, we meant to achieve these two things: to be first off the block when the recovery comes, and to ensure that as we emerge, we continue to lead in the industry. We have achieved both. Even up to today, you see that our recovery to pre-COVID capacity remained ahead of the airlines in Asia-Pacific. Because we have achieved both, we were also able to achieve outstanding financial performance. We had record load factor, revenue, operating profits, and net profit in the financial year 2022/23.
This year, we're breaking all this record again. But it's not just a financial performance. We have done well because we say that we want to be continue to be the leader in the industry. So we have also done well by our customers. You can see how the net promoter scores as well as the customer satisfaction scores have gone up significantly. We have also done well by our staff. You look at this is a result of a climate survey that we have conducted, and you can see also how our staff rate the experience with the company. We have done well by our shareholders. Jo-Ann had earlier presented the, our intention to redeem the remaining tranche of the MCBs. And with that, SGD 9.7 billion, the whole SGD 9.7 billion will be redeemed. And this is within a 2-3 years time frame, not a minute.
You will recall that at the beginning of the crisis, we had a very strong support from all our shareholders, Temasek, of course, but also all the other shareholders, to successfully raise SGD 15 billion, of which 9.7 were actually in the form of MCBs. Removing or fully paying out these MCBs with the accrued yields also means that the concern over dilution, should these MCBs be converted in shares, are no longer there for our shareholders. We have, in the previous financial year, paid good dividend, and this year, a even better dividend year is proposed, reflecting the even better performance that we have achieved this financial year. And, of course, the share price. Those who have subscribed to the share at SGD 3 are today looking well, it's between 6.7-6.8. I just looked at the SGX listing price earlier, but more than double.
Of course, the SGD 15 billion from our shareholders were not all we raised. During that period, we went on to raise more money to reach SGD 23.5 billion. And those are from largely from sales and lease backs secured financing, bonds. And we were able to raise them at a very attractive, interest premium to the company. We received accolades during this whole period, of course, the Best Airline Award, both from a perspective of customers and also for industry professionals. Most admired company, the only company in Singapore and very few in Asia, made up this list of 50 most admired companies in the world. And also how we are perceived as an employer. We have to remember that the airline industry was one of the worst affected during the COVID.
I think it's something all of us can appreciate that it is no mean feat to be able to do all this during a time when it was so challenging. We would like to thank all our key stakeholders for it. Certainly, our customers who have stayed with us and continue to support us, our shareholders who came in, and we are very happy that we are able to bring benefits to their trust and their investment. The government has taken proactive steps to make sure that the borders are open between Singapore and the rest of the world. Of course, we are not operating alone. Our ecosystem partners were also involved in reviving the Singapore hub. Last but not least, our incredible people. But it's not just what we have done during COVID that is supporting the company's progress going into the future.
We're well positioned for the future, more so, I would say, than most of the airlines. Why so? If you look at the challenges, not very different from any other airlines, in fact, probably from most other organizations, other businesses as well. In the case of airline business or airline industry, I think the audience would know that we are affected by many things around the world. We must always be adjusted. These are not new challenges per se. These are challenges in different severity that we have been handling all through. More importantly, do we have what it takes to succeed despite those challenges? More new challenges may evolve in the future. We believe so.
Even throughout COVID before COVID, certainly even throughout COVID, we continue to invest in the three pillars of our brand promise, whether it is in servicing our customers, equipping our frontline staff with digital tools that could help them better anticipate and serve our customers' needs, improving our product offerings ranges from our seat products, free Wi-Fi, unlimited Wi-Fi for everyone, improvement, a revamp in our meal provisions, the latest being the PEY meals, and others. And certainly, also in network, we have introduced new points. And Scoot, our subsidiary company, have introduced even a new fleet type, which again enabled us to serve points such as Sibu that we couldn't before serve because of the size of the plane. But it's not just that.
It is also some of the strategic initiatives that we have done many years back that we are seeing it bearing fruit and supporting the entire group. Scoot is one example. We set it up in 2011. That's more than 10 years ago. This is 2024, right? Today, I think we can undeniably say that Scoot is a leading LCC in our part of the world. It will continue to expand. As I say, they have just introduced a new fleet. So we will not stop looking at ways for which we can grow. The Scoot model allows us to grow in a way that SIA couldn't before. Expansion in our collaboration with other like-minded carriers. Many of them, we are looking at or we have established strong, deep commercial cooperation with.
Bearing in mind that we are in a region of growth, Southeast Asia, and we are well positioned to be able to participate directly in this growth in Southeast Asia. Some of this partnership will enable us to expand our network in collaboration, in a win-win manner with our partners in the region. Of course, also our multi-hub, India. It was first announced in 2013. But in the case of India, you would appreciate that when we announce something, the work didn't start there. The work started before. You can probably guess that it started years before. It has always been, like the case of setting up Scoot, been a long-term strategic investment that we have made. Today, Vistara is clearly appreciated in India as the best airline in India. Those of you who have the opportunity to take Vistara, you would know.
When all the approvers come through, we will eventually own 25.1% of Air India, which you will know is the number of Asians of four airlines: Air India and Air India Express, AirAsia India and Vistara. If you look at the India landscape today, nobody can deny its growth potential. But of course, if you were to look at India 10 years ago, while there was growth potential, I don't think or more than 10 years ago, actually, I don't think people could quite guess that it will be as buoyant as today. Already the third biggest travel market in the world, going to be the third biggest economy within a decade. And how many foreign airlines are able to directly participate in this market?
You can safely see that there are no other airlines who have quite the investments that we are making, strategic investment that we are making, and be able to benefit and participate directly in the growth. We have also been growing our adjacent businesses. All of these businesses are businesses that we have groomed over the years. We have made news releases explaining what they were before. So I won't go into detail, but I would like to highlight our FFP program. Significant growth even despite COVID. 8.8 million members. I don't think you can find, well, any, at least not many, airlines where its FFP membership is bigger than the population of its home base. SGD 1.2 billion from the FFP program in terms of revenue.
We continue to look at how to expand Kris Plus together with Kris Flyer program in the region. If you do not have a Kris Plus account, please get one. It's beneficial. Sustainability. We take a leadership position in the region in terms of pushing for this. And as you know, we got AAPA, which is the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines, together with our fellow airlines in the membership, to agree to a 5% target to reach 5% SAF by 2030. We also proactively work with our government to try to implement that over time. There are many things in sustainability that we are trying to explore. But this is SIA. I would only be able to tell you when we have greater certainty of what we want to achieve and how we can achieve it.
Rest assured, it is higher up in the agenda, not just with management, but also with the entire board. We continue to want to contribute back to the community. Some of the activities are listed here. We have just announced also the formation of the SIA Foundation. Again, very soon you will hear more elaboration, more detail about what that entails and how do we target to make the foundation relevant for the community. We have strong financial strength. Since our first transformation, which is in 2016, 2017, to today, we are now widely recognized as a leading digital carrier. In fact, many organizations beyond even airlines are making visits to see how we have achieved that. Certainly, our people. It has been and will continue to be our biggest asset.
During the COVID period, our people actually took greater sacrifices relative to many other of their peers. Everybody were willing to make those sacrifices together so that we can retain the core operating resources for us to make those quick recovery first of the blocks. So I just want to reemphasize that the environment will always be having some challenges. Some of those are highlighted earlier. But for us, it also has a lot of opportunities because of the investments that we have made, not just over the last one year, two years, three years. As you can see, it's over the last decade that we are seeing how it positioned the group very differently from many other airlines to be able to tap and capture those growth that is not necessarily available to many.
All these strategic investments, on top of the strong foundations that we have, we are confident, and I hope you are too, that we will continue to be able to tap and capture growth potential going forward. Thank you.
Thank you, Choon Phong. We will now move to the Q&A segment. For those who are logged in online, you will be able to send the questions through the widget that's available there. So please do send your questions in, and we will take them as we go along. We will have the usual format for the questions and answers. We will have about 30 minutes-40 minutes or so. So if I could please ask you to limit your questions to one each. That would be much appreciated. Please state your name and the organization you represent before you ask a question. Just raise your hand or point to me, and I'll indicate when you can take the question. And we have some of my colleagues here with the microphones who'll be running around for that.
Yep.
So without further ado, could I invite Choon Phong as well as Jo-Ann? They will be joined by Lee Lik Hsin, who's our Chief Commercial Officer, as well as Tan Kai Ping, who's our Chief Operations Officer. Okay. So let's start. Who would like to ask the first question? Yes, Chen Chuanren, please.
Hi. Good morning, Mr. Guo and panel. Chen Chuanren from Air Transport World. Question. Oh, sorry, Mr. Siva. Two questions. First, on the 777-9, Lufthansa has said their delivery will slip to 2026. Are you seeing the same sentiments as them? And with that, are there any additional mitigation to your current fleet? And do you foresee that your new product for the 777-9 will lose its age by the time the aircraft is delivered? That's my first question. Thank you.
Thank you for the questions. At this point in time, based on our understanding, we are expecting the 777-9 to still be delivered next year. On the questions on the products, yes, the 777 was meant to debut earlier, in fact, much earlier. Last year was when we were targeting to launch it. You can be rest assured that while we had this delay, we have been making full use of the delay to ensure that any features that we had planned before continue to be updated.
Any mitigation to the current fleet?
Current fleet because of the delay? We addressed that previously as well. We do have some flexibility with the 777-300ER in terms of our retention.
Our second question on the SAF, 1,000 tons is actually very little. I think you can expand that in a few days, given your scale of operations. Could you explain that amount and why not a bigger sum for your first purchase? Thank you.
As I mentioned earlier, we announce when we know when we are quite sure what the expectations of productions and our expectations of takeoff is. You can be assured that it will not stop there. But it has to be something that we have some certainty on, both volume and price. Thanks.
Thank you. We do have a lot of people and not much time, so I've had to ask everybody. Limit yourself to one question, please. If there are no more questions, I can come back to you later. Thank you. Next question in the room? Yes, please. Angela from the Straits Times. If you could wait for the mic, please, Angela. Thank you.
Angela from The Straits Times. Just a simple question. Do you expect this 24% growth seen for FY2024 to be repeated, or is this a one-off? And how do you see the delays in the parts affecting your expansion plans? Thank you.
Sorry. Could you repeat the part about the 24%?
Sorry. Your net profit growth this year. Last year.
So we have said that, and you can see from our figures, that there is some decrease in the passenger yields that we have been experiencing over the last six months. The additional capacity that has been put into place by the other carriers, obviously, will put some downward pressure on yields. But as mentioned by our CEO, we do believe that we are well positioned for the future. So that's in regard to our outlook. The second question was?
Spare parts.
We are managing the situation. In respect of all of the published schedules we have, we do expect to be able to operate all of those flights.
Thank you. Next question, please. Maybe I'll go to the online questions then. We've got a question from Tabitha Foo from DBS. Any capacity guidance and recovery in China has it picked up in a meaningful way?
We don't give capacity guidance. But in relation to the recovery in China, I could perhaps add a bit of color. So travel into China has been strong. Travel out of China has not yet recovered fully to the pre-pandemic levels. But in recent months, of course, there has been the visa-free for Chinese to come to Singapore. And that has helped provide some lift to our load factors for our Chinese flights. So we are optimistic about our China routes.
Thank you. Just when we have one more question, Lisa from Reuters is asking, saying, "Group capacity versus pre-COVID levels has fallen since the start of the year." Could I ask why that is?
Maybe I'll just take this question. It depends on how you compare. Really, the right comparison should be comparing corresponding month in 2019 with the latest performance. Initially, when we first started, the comparison has always been just to January of 2020. But of course, all of us know there's seasonality and all those considerations. So the more appropriate comparison really is corresponding month between current and 2019. And if you were to do that, you would find that the January to March, which is the fourth quarter in our case, of 2024, is actually comparable capacity-wise to January to March of 2019. And if we just look at the first quarter of this financial year, which is April to June quarter, relative between the current 2024 April to June quarter, comparing it with April to June quarter in 2019, you'll find that it is also very close.
In essence, we are really back to pre-COVID capacity.
Thank you, Choon Phong. Any questions from the room? We have Tim, please, in the second room.
Hi. It's Tim Bacchus from Bloomberg Intelligence. Thanks for the opportunity, Siva. So I wanted to ask on fuel hedging. I recall we talked about this at the last briefing. But optically, it looks like the hedging profile is lower. So even, I guess, the first half of this year, you take MOPS and the Brent, it's at mid-30%. But then second half, it's only 19%, something like that. That seems lower than previous hedging profiles. Is SI taking some kind of view on the market that perhaps fuel wouldn't go lower, that there's no need to hedge? Or what can we read from that? Thanks.
I'll take that. There is no change in our hedging. We continue to hedge on declining wedge basis. So the numbers that you see here is as at March of 2024. So clearly, as the year progresses and the months progresses, we are taking more hedges. So there is no change.
Thank you. Right at the back there, please. Thank you.
Hello. Mercedes Ruehl from the Financial Times. How are you? I was just wondering, there's been a lot of, as demand for e-commerce out of China jumps, a lot of the global airlines are rethinking their strategies in terms of air freight routes and belly cargo capacity deployments. Just wondering if you're doing anything to try to capture this as well.
Oh, very much so. In fact, if you look at our partnership with DHL, where we have an operating agreement to bring 777 freighters into Singapore, that is a sign of our commitment to growing the cargo market. Now, while those are DHL freighters operated by us, they have good synergy with our own belly capacity as well as freighter capacity for transfer cargo flows in and out of Singapore.
Thank you, Lik Hsin. We've got a question from Perry Jung from UBS. Can you comment on the lower ex-fuel unit cost quarter-over-quarter and what drove the decline?
Thank you, Perry, for your question. I think we have spoken about this at previous and this briefing as well. When you compare a quarter-on-quarter comparison, we have all sorts of timing difference. We have actually previously guided at a year-on-year comparison is actually more, if you will like, more representative. If you are talking about Q4 to Q3, there have been some movements in terms of when we do specific items. For example, aircraft maintenance depends on when it's due. A quarter-on-quarter comparison is not always the best measure of our costs.
Thank you, Jo-Ann. Do we have any questions in the room? I'll just take one more from here. We've got Divya from Morgan Stanley asking about the reasons behind the profit decline at Scoot year-over-year and the profitability outlook for this segment for Scoot.
You know that Scoot's operation is largely regional. The regional routes are the ones that see greater injection of capacity. Therefore, you can expect that there is greater competitive pressure. That contributes to what you see in Scoot's experience. We do not give profitability guidance.
Thank you. Any questions in the room? We'll go to Tim and then Angela again.
Thanks. I was wondering about the associate contribution line. It looks very strong. Specifically, maybe what is driving some of the companies behind that? Is India starting to play a bigger role in that? Thanks.
In the associate line, we do see improvement. In particular, Vistara is a fairly large contributor. They have actually narrowed their losses this year.
Thank you. Maybe Angela again.
Hi. Can you share some of the ways that the group is looking to mitigate the higher costs from staff and ground handling, things like that?
So for staff, if you recall in my presentation, other than the increases because of a headcount, which is associated with the increase in capacity, year-over-year, we also had the increase because last year, we had some benefits from still had benefits from government-related grants, which is absent this year. That's one component. I think the second component, if you look at yeah. So with staff as well, there is a you saw the increase primarily because we had a pretty large ramp-up in the last year. And that's kind of reflected in the staff costs. In terms of the other cost elements, in particular, you talked about ground handling. We tend to go into very long-term contracts with our ground handlers. So at least this gives us some level of certainty when we lock in prices.
So this helps us in a slightly more inflationary environment to lock down our costs.
We've got a question from Tani Lee from Bloomberg who's online. Well, we've given the outlook for the aircraft deliveries. He's asking really about the risk of delays on the 777-8 and other aircraft types like the Embraer or Airbus aircraft. And he's asking whether we are projected to be behind our delivery plan. He's asking whether we are already behind the delivery plan based on what we've published.
What Jo-Ann has presented earlier is the schedule that we currently have with the OEMs. So if there are any change in those schedules, we'll certainly reflect them.
Thank you. Ezien from OCBC is asking, "When will we complete the transaction for the merger of Air India and Vistara?
It's pending some regulatory approvals. I think it was mentioned that one of them is FDI and all that. We will have to wait for the approval. Hopefully, we will hear something within the calendar year. It is really a timing that is determined from the regulators' perspective.
Okay. And we've got Adrian Schofield from Aviation Week asking, "How much lower is your Chinese capacity now versus 2019? And are we going to see more connecting demand from North Asia to mainland China?" The traffic flows from North America sorry, North America to mainland China. Sorry about that.
I don't have the exact figure on hand. Maybe you could respond to him. Yes, our capacity to China is still lower than pre-COVID. In relation to North America to China, that's not a traffic flow that we normally carry because we're not geographically positioned to be able to really carry that traffic flow.
Yeah. He's just asking whether we got more. But yeah, that answers that. Yes, please. In the first row here, this gentleman here, beside Tim.
Hello. This is Roy from UOB Kay Hian here. Thanks very much for the opportunity. I have a question regarding your tax credit. Also, notice there has been a quite sizable reversal of overprovision from last year. Also, I noted that you have unrecognized tax losses of over SGD 300 million, which might be used for offset future tax expenses. So I wonder whether there will be more reversal of overprovision or tax credit in the upcoming financial year.
Thank you for your question, Roy. I think your question around tax credit, clearly, when we make provision for deferred tax, we are expecting to pay them, presumably. So that's one we will have to see when the financial year comes, what the tax authorities say. I'm not sure. Can you repeat your other questions? You had a long line of questions before that. Okay.
Okay. That answers that. Mayuko, please. Thank you.
Hi. Mayuko, Danny from U.K. Thank you for the opportunity. May I ask about China market? First, are you planning to mount the capacity this financial year? You have canceled some of the routes like Chongqing and Chengdu. What happened with those routes? And what was the reason of cancellation or suspension? And if you are looking at you said long-term, you are optimistic. But is this financial year, will you be enhancing I mean, strengthening the routes in the market?
So for some of the China points, we had canceled some flights earlier because we could not secure regulatory approvals. We have since been able to secure regulatory approvals for those flights. So Chongqing and Chengdu, they are all back available for sale. For some of them, they are only available for sale up to a certain point, July, I believe. And that's also because we managed to secure approvals only up to that point. But we are in constant contact with the authorities and working with the authorities. And as long as we can secure the approvals, we definitely want to operate to those points. We are progressively putting back overall capacity into China as well, into both Shanghai, Beijing, into Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou. We would be operating more capacity this year than last year.
Thank you, Lik Hsin. Perry Jung, I think you had a question. Thank you.
Can I ask more than one question?
We have a few questions. Yes. Maybe one, and then I'll come back to you later if you've got more.
Oh, okay. Can I check with you? So what is the staff strength of SIA now? What is the percentage in the ramp-up over the last year?
Percentage ramp-up over the last year.
Staff strength now, the number of staff.
I think you can see this in the press release. We have released our numbers. So as reported, we have 16,600 staff this year. It's an increase of 12.4%.
Thank you. We've got a few questions online. We've got Neil Glynn from Air Control Tower. He's asking about the SIA cargo yield and unit cost data. Suggests cargo hasn't been profitable since Q1 of 2023/2024. Is there a plan to address unit cost inflation or another strategy to restore pre-pandemic profitability?
We do not measure cargo profitability. We do not publish such numbers. It is part of that holistic business that we have, especially in the belly of the aircraft and in combination with our freighters. Now, in relation to the cargo yields falling, yes, they have been falling. But they are still above the pre-COVID levels. As a whole, we still believe cargo to be an important and strategic part of our business.
Yeah. Thank you, Lik Hsin. We've got a question from Danny, basically asking about our partnerships, asking about the update on ANA where we are with the antitrust process, and also on Garuda.
In progress. If and when we get the approval, we'll certainly announce it.
Thank you. So we'll go to Chuanren.
A slightly lighter note. How much of your Q4 results is a result of Taylor Swift and Coldplay in Singapore? And do you think that it's going to be a fluke event that your flights are filled out because of this sort of events? Thank you.
Our objective is to fill our flights. Whether or not there's a Taylor Swift concert, and I would confidently say that had there not been one, we would still have been able to fill our flights.
We've got a question online from Perry asking about the dividend policy. Is the payout ratio sustainable at 50% in FY 2024/25?
We have no dividend policy to announce.
Thank you. Probably got time for one or two more questions. So maybe Mercedes over there.
Hello. Just one more question. There's been some recent concerns around the Boeing 787, which Singapore has ordered. Is there any kind of particular concerns you have around this aircraft?
787s.
What is the latter part of your question? Do we?
Have any concerns about this particular aircraft?
We and actually both SQ and TR are customers of the 787 planes. For the planes that we operate, we don't have any concerns about its safe operations. I also want to maybe add a point about our relationship generally with OEMs. We adopt a very holistic relationship in that we work with them as a partner to look at how we can make products better and how we can ensure that we have a productive relationship in terms of supporting us as well as feeding back on any issues that we find. So this kind of constructive relationship has made it better in terms of how we can also get support from the OEMs. So I'm talking about this in general, not necessarily referring to Boeing alone.
That is the reason why you find that in many cases when there are disruptions because of weather, whether it is supply issues, spare part issues, and all that, we are actually relatively less affected. Thanks.
Thank you. Wei Ting, maybe the last word to her, please. Thank you.
Hi. Wei Ting from Lianhe Zaobao here. Can I ask, right now, with the plans for SAF, still some time to go? But why take the move now? Is it a first-mover's advantage or disadvantage? And is there a long-term hedging plan for SAF? And I mean, yesterday was the leadership renewal. So is there any renewal of leadership plans here?
That is like three questions in one, Waiting.
Yeah. The last question you asked is beyond my pay scale. You have to ask the board. But on SAF, quite frankly, we do not look at it as a competitive thing. It is really an industry problem. No airline can solve this issue alone. It's just too big. We are talking about being able for the aviation industry to reach net zero by 2050. And I would say that almost all airlines have committed to that. But then SAF must be a very integral part of that solution in order for that target to be reached by 2050. So the airlines have to work together to convince the producers of SAF, firstly, to be able to source for the acceptable feedstock and to make sure that there is enough supply in order to produce sufficient SAF for demand by the industry as a whole.
Plus, it has to be at a price level that is acceptable. Currently, it's 3-5 times 3-5 times of conventional jet fuel. That level of cost, I think you can look for yourself. At this point in time, even with the current fuel price, it is almost one-third of our total expenditure, 3-5 times. It cannot be the long-term solution. So it is something that I truly believe the industry as a whole has to come together and resolve. I don't view it as really a competitive issue.
Great. Thank you. All right. Maybe one last question then. We really would have to stop.
Okay. Thank you, Roy, again from UOB Kay Hian here. Okay. My question is regarding the cargo yield outlook. So okay. In the last few weeks or last 1, 2 months, the ocean freight routes has actually surged a lot. And apparently, their airlines have benefited from the cargo diversion from ocean to the air. My question is, for the air freight routes here in Singapore, do we see in the last few weeks or into the first quarter of FY 2025, do we see the cargo yield has improved versus the fourth quarter of last year?
There was some flow of cargo from sea to air arising from the Red Sea issues. We were there to capitalize on it. We had some improvement in our load factor. Now, as to rates, I think it's a function of demand and supply. All we will say is that we want to remain nimble and to be able to capture a market share. Thanks. We don't give any information on figures not published. I can't talk about the first quarter.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. We've come to the end of this session. Thank you for your time. We will see you again in November. Have a good day and a good week, everyone. Thank you.