The operating results for October 2012 are given in the table below.

In October 2012, Singapore Airlines' systemwide passenger carriage (measured in revenue passenger kilometres) rose 7.1% against 5.6% growth in capacity (measured in available seat kilometres). As a result, passenger load factor (PLF) improved by 1.1 percentage points to 77.8%.  The number of passengers carried increased by 7.1% to 1.5 million.

Systemwide PLF improved on the back of increased promotional activities, especially on long haul sectors to Americas and Europe route regions. PLF on the South West Pacific route region declined as growth in demand was outpaced by the increase in capacity. Ongoing efforts to stimulate demand will continue to put pressure on yields.

SilkAir’s systemwide passenger carriage increased 20.2% year-on-year against 19.4% growth in capacity. As a result, PLF was 0.5 of a percentage point higher at 74.3%. PLFs on West Asia routes reported a year-on-year increase of 4.8 percentage points as market conditions remained healthy in developing markets. PLF for East Asia and Pacific routes declined 1.5 percentage points as the growth in traffic lagged that of capacity increase. On 28 October 2012, SilkAir launched 3 times weekly scheduled services to Visakhapatnam, the carrier’s eighth online destination in India.

Overall cargo traffic (measured in freight-tonne-kilometres) was 13.1% lower year-on-year, while cargo capacity decreased by 9.9%. Consequently, cargo load factor (CLF) decreased by 2.4 percentage points. CLF decreased for all route regions, except for Europe, in spite of lower capacity. The East Asia route region was the only exception where capacity increased marginally by 1.1% arising from cargo capacity on passenger aircraft. The air cargo market remains depressed and the near-term outlook continues to be challenging.