Singapore Airlines has just reported its best financial results in history, and employees will be sharing very nicely in this success.
In this post:
Singapore Airlines employees get huge bonuses
Singapore Airlines has revealed that it will pay staff bonuses equal to roughly eight months of salary. Specifically, staff will be getting a 32-week profit sharing bonus, which the airline describes as being equal to 7.94 months of pay. This profit sharing is based on a longstanding formula that has been agreed upon with unions.
About a year ago, Singapore Airlines awarded its previous highest bonus ever, which saw the airline offer staff a two-part reward. First they received a profit sharing bonus equal to 6.65 months of salary. On top of that, the airline offered staff an ex-gratia bonus equal to 1.5 months of salary, in recognition of their hard work and sacrifice during the pandemic.
It goes without saying that this is a huge bonus for staff, and is something they worked hard for. In this case, this is also a bonus that the staff are contractually entitled to, so it’s pretty wild to think that frontline employees could regularly be getting bonuses that increase their salary by 60%+ on an annual basis. I guess it shows you in what a good situation some airlines are.
Singapore Airlines is absolutely setting a record here with its profit sharing percentages. We recently saw Emirates announce that staff would receive a bonus equal to 20 weeks worth of pay. That’s not based on any formula, but rather is at management’s discretion.
Then you have Delta, which has the most profit sharing among US airlines. Employees there recently received 10.4% profit sharing of their overall pay. That’s of course great by US airline standards, but it’s not a 60%+ bonus on salary, as we’re seeing at Singapore Airlines.
Details of Singapore Airlines’ best year in history
Singapore Airlines recently reported its results for the 2023-2024 financial year, which ended on March 31, 2024. The company reported the best financial results in its 77-year history, with a net profit of S$2.675 billion ($2.0 billion USD). This profit was 24% higher than in the year prior, and came after the airline suffered losses for three straight years prior to that.
Just to compare some year-over-year numbers for Singapore Airlines and its low cost subsidiary Scoot:
- The average load factor was 88%, a 2.6% improvement over the year prior
- The airline group carried 36.4 million passengers, a 37.6% increase over the year prior
- Revenue for the year was S$19 billion, a 7% increase over the year prior
- Revenue per available seat kilometer was S$0.0109, a 7.6% decrease compared to the year prior
Essentially, the past financial year was one where Singapore Airlines greatly boosted capacity to get closer to pre-pandemic levels. Yields suffered a bit compared to the year prior, but the airline managed to improve load factors despite massively ramping up capacity.
Increasing capacity by nearly 40% while increasing load factor and only slightly lowering yields is an excellent result. The only truly negative result is that cargo revenue fell by 41.2% compared to the year prior, but this is reflective of the industry at large, as airlines have brought back capacity. Cargo revenue the past year was still 29.8% above pre-pandemic levels, which really shows you how cargo dynamics have changed in the industry.
Bottom line
Singapore Airlines has reported a record profit for the past year, beating results of the year prior, which was the record year up until that point. In the past financial year, Singapore Airlines managed to greatly increase capacity while also increasing load factor, and only slightly reducing yields.
Employees at the airline are being rewarded for these great results, and are receiving bonuses equal to nearly eight months of pay. This is similar to the bonus that employees received the year prior. It’s great to see how well staff are being rewarded, after a few very challenging years.
What do you make of this Singapore Airlines employee bonus?
All of this companies given generous bonus except the one that is always showing off and bragging around of being the world best one...which one? QR of course
The airlines are making record profits at the expense of its customers who are prepared to pay due to pent up demand after Covid not at good management .
The cost of my regular air tickets have increased by 50% ion the past two years .
You gotta respect a company that takes care of its employees over hyper focusing on shareholders or executive salaries & bonuses or hiring celebrity athletes as “consultant”
I don’t blame US airlines though as this is how our system is designed, value companies over employees, value rich execs over peasant employees.
I’m gonna fly more Singapore & happy to pay for it!
SQ does so well. Amazing crew and service always, regardless of cabin.
Plus, you know SQ appreciates passengers’ loyalty when the pilot comes and tells you ‘thank you, I am glad I could be of service’! It’s not what was said, but how it was said. With sincerity and humility.
And then we have Qantas, falling over truckloads of cash, with not a hint of such largesse towards its employees (except for recently departed CEO Alan Joyce, natch).
Oh... wait, yes, its shareholders can be expected to be rewarded handsomely I imagine.
I recently flew from LHR - Sing -Dad business on a A 380, what can you say. With bonuses like that there is an incentive to do your job with enjoyment, pride, etc etc. However, Singapore has been a stand out year after year. If only USA airlines could learn from their results along with other Asian and Mid East carriers they might get more positive results. For me if there is an alternative to...
I recently flew from LHR - Sing -Dad business on a A 380, what can you say. With bonuses like that there is an incentive to do your job with enjoyment, pride, etc etc. However, Singapore has been a stand out year after year. If only USA airlines could learn from their results along with other Asian and Mid East carriers they might get more positive results. For me if there is an alternative to flying on USA run airlines GO FOR IT you will have a. much more pleasant experience
Without a doubt we all pay for that. SQ is well known for good quality service but it is also extremely expensive. Nothing comes for free I am afraid.
You pay for quality. It would be great if we could pay Frontier Airlines prices for SQ service, but that's not how the world works.
Clearly many people are willing to fork over the big bucks for SQ, I'm certainly one of them.
+1
SQ should use the money to improve economy meals on regional flights. The laksa, the noodles, and the fried rice served in a box are terrible, and very difficult to eat.
What is a typical base salary for a SQ employee who isn't a pilot? What's the typical yearly salary for a flight attendant, ramp agent, CS agent, reservation agent, mechanic, dispatcher? The article draws a reference to EK and DL and what I found out is for EK although OMAT did an article on EK paying their employees a bonus worth 20 weeks of pay a typical EK flight attendant's basic pay is around $500...
What is a typical base salary for a SQ employee who isn't a pilot? What's the typical yearly salary for a flight attendant, ramp agent, CS agent, reservation agent, mechanic, dispatcher? The article draws a reference to EK and DL and what I found out is for EK although OMAT did an article on EK paying their employees a bonus worth 20 weeks of pay a typical EK flight attendant's basic pay is around $500 US dollars per month. Once housing allowances and other benefits are thrown in their total compensation is higher but the part of their salary that is calculated for bonuses is only $500 US dollars per month or $125 dollars per week which would translate into $2500 US dollar bonus. Most ground staff at EK aren't making huge sums of money so I'm wondering how is the pay situation at SQ for anyone who isn't a pilot? It's one thing to say SQ is paying 8 months salary bonus that sounds great but it makes me wonder what is the monthly and yearly salary for a typical SQ employee?
They've all made record profits because the flights were full and the fares sky-high. Now that things are starting to get more competitive again it will be interesting to see if these super-profits are sustainable.
The slow recovery of Cathay Pacific gave Singapore Airlines an advantage. Cathay is SIA's biggest regional rival. Currently Cathay Pacific has recovered up to 70% of their pre-pandemic capacity. Singapore Airlines totally recovered months ago.
All the profit they make and they still can't hand out a proper amenity kit.
Or maybe forcing their high paying customers to beg for a subpar amenity kit is why they made so much.
Or PJs…, it’s beyond disbelief that SQ doesn’t provide them to its premium pax on the longest commercial flight !
they recently were giving out mouldy amenities kits in first class, which I only noticed when I got home. I thought i was the only one but i heard from at least 2 others online that their kits were mouldy too (they too thought they were the only ones).
Man look at all these Premium carriers with the profit sharing! :D :D :D
Are the unions still turning their backs on the Scott Kirbys of the world?
again, because SQ is publicly traded and its financial results conform to international standards for disclosure, it is fairly easy to compare its results to DL. EK conforms to international financial disclosure standards as well.
Ben might be surprised to learn that DL and SQ employees actually make comparable amounts of money in total compensation when adjusted for cost of living and the exchange rate.
DL employees earn a larger percentage of their salary in...
again, because SQ is publicly traded and its financial results conform to international standards for disclosure, it is fairly easy to compare its results to DL. EK conforms to international financial disclosure standards as well.
Ben might be surprised to learn that DL and SQ employees actually make comparable amounts of money in total compensation when adjusted for cost of living and the exchange rate.
DL employees earn a larger percentage of their salary in "fixed" known compensation ahead of time - regularly salary - than SQ employees which means they have much more of their total income at risk of the company's financial performance.
Unlike EK, DL and SQ are located in companies where people want to live and thus DL and SQ have high percentages of its workforce that are citizens of their home country. DL and SQ pay wages that are in line with the countries where they work while EK uses the cruise ship model of compensation in bringing in low cost expatriates that make far less than local citizens.
Compensation is always local so the bigger scandal is not that SQ and DL employees make similar amounts of money (they should since they are both successful, well-run companies) but that AA employees receive next to no profit sharing, UA employees received about half of what DL employees got in profit sharing in 2023, and WN employees received far below their historic levels of profit sharing because WN is struggling due to Boeing's issues.
Add in that AA and UA have not raised the compensation of their flight attendants while DL has done it multiple times - and thus their financial results reflect industry -leading compensation - but WN FAs also now have raised their compensation even though WN's profit margin in 2023 was about the same as AA.
Companies that were well-run before the pandemic and had good employee relationships are back where they were.
SQ and DL fit in that camp. EK pays half of what DL and SQ pay on average but manage to find plenty of people in lower income countries willing to work for EK and live in the UAE because they are so far from home.
Bro, shut the hell up for once. It’s an article about SQ and you somehow spin it about American carriers.
And Ben, your ads suck.
@ Annoyed -- I'm aggressively trying to improve the ad situation. Perhaps it's a topic to explain in more detail in a post, but it's not as simple as just flipping a switch, due to the custom way the blog is configured, and how ads are served through the network. But I promise it's being worked on, and I hear your frustration.
Singapore airlines crew members are discriminating Indian passengers Indian traffic are the bread and butter due to which they made huge profits like EK
SQ doesn’t rely on India being their bread and butter, fares out of India are so low that it only makes up a small fraction on what generated to the record profits they made. Asia pacific, direct North America flights and the kangaroo route are the cash cows of SQ.
We all read a piece on SQ.
You left a comment on, inter alia, DL.
Exhausting and tedious.
you didn't fully read the article.
Try again and you might find the AUTHOR's reference to DL and EK
@ Tim Dunn YAWWWWNNNNNN
Wait - Tim D - people WANT to live in Atlanta??? Yuck!
people often live where they have to live for a job.
None of which changes that DL employees are still the best compensated in the world across the board; as noted, actual base rates for SQ FAs are low and there are no senior FAs or many other frontline personnel at SQ.
SQ people got a big bonus but they took home pretty small paychecks throughout the year because a much higher percentage of...
people often live where they have to live for a job.
None of which changes that DL employees are still the best compensated in the world across the board; as noted, actual base rates for SQ FAs are low and there are no senior FAs or many other frontline personnel at SQ.
SQ people got a big bonus but they took home pretty small paychecks throughout the year because a much higher percentage of their total compensation is "at risk" and subject to the company's performance.
and since we are talking about a Pacific airline and UA has the largest TPAC network of any airline, the DOT just released profitability by global region data for the 4th quarter of 2023 and UA lost money flying the Pacific in that period. They broke even flying the Atlantic.
For the whole year, UA made $1.3 billion in profit on its entire international system.
AA broke even for the year on its entire international system; they lose money flying the Atlantic and Pacific.
DL made money in all 4 regions including domestic in the 4th quarter and for the year made 1.5X more profit on its international network flying 30% fewer int'l ASMs than UA.
UA has talked a lot about wanting to match DL's profitability but it is clear that won't happen until UA stops trying to flood the int'l market with capacity - just as Cranky Flier noted in the 1st quarter - which will very likely show similar results as the 4th quarter of 2023 when the DOT gets around to releasing that data.
UA's international network is not sustainably profitable. DL's much more balanced approach to its international network yields greater profits. AA simply burns stockholder money on most of its TPAC and TATL networks.
Yeah, they do. Clearly you haven't been to Atlanta in a while cause it's one of the fastest growing cities in the US. It's actually a great city, and that's why I moved here last year.
A majority of profits are coming from the Indian subcontinent. As the Indian Airlines based in India like Air India and Jet Airways ramp up their international flights they're going to take some of this business away. Many Indians connect to the US using Emirates and with Air India with their new planes flying non-stop to many cities in the US people would eventually prefer the convenience especially if Air India is able to improve which it seems to be doing.