Singapore Air hands staff eight months’ salary bonus after record results

Singapore: Singapore Airlines will pay staff a bonus of around eight months’ salary after posting a record annual profit.

Eligible staff will be paid a profit-sharing bonus equivalent to 6.65 months’ pay, and a maximum of 1.5 months’ salary of ex-gratia bonus in recognition of their hard work and sacrifices during the pandemic, a spokesperson for the airline said. Senior management won’t receive that additional ex-gratia bonus.

“The bonus for Singapore Airlines’ employees is based on a long-standing annual profit-sharing bonus formula that has been agreed with our staff unions,” the spokesperson said.

The city-state’s flag carrier on Tuesday reported net income of S$2.16 billion ($1.62 billion) for the year ended March 31, and said forward sales are healthy across all cabin classes, led by bookings to China, Japan and South Korea. Singapore Airlines’ shares were up 1.2 per cent on Thursday.

Singapore Airlines and its budget offshoot Scoot carried 26.5 million passengers in the year, six times higher than the 12 months through March 2022, with passenger capacity rising to 79 per cent of pre-Covid levels in March.

On Monday, Singapore Air said it flew 1.75 million passengers in April, up 53 per cent from the same month last year. Hong Kong rival Cathay Pacific Airways has a way to go before it gets to those heights, with last year’s revenue still only about half of pre-pandemic levels.