Cargo continued to suffer in March as demand for air passenger travel improved across all routes, according to Singapore Airlines.

The group, which includes lowcost subsidiary Scoot, issued a March operating results update this week.

Group passenger capacity was 10.9% higher compared to February 2023, and reached 79% of pre-Covid-19 levels during the month.

SIA and Scoot carried a combined 2.7 million passengers in the month (+14.1% month-on-month, and three times the number of passengers carried in March 2022).

Group passenger load factor was 89.0% (+2.4 percentage points month-on-month, +34.5 percentage points year-on-year). Scoot’s PLF of 92.8% was the highest in its history.

However, key cargo figures remained down on 2022 with the amount of cargo carried down 13.4% to 447.8 million tonne-kilometre.

Regional cargo load factors saw East Asia down by the most (31.9 percentage points), and The Americas and Europe down by just 6.6 and 12.3 percentage points respectively.

In a trading statement, the airline said: “The cargo load factor of 55.1% was 17.4 percentage points lower year-on-year.

“Cargo loads declined by 13.4% year-on-year due to weaker demand, while capacity expanded by 14.1% as increased passenger services resulted in higher bellyhold capacity.”