Singapore Airlines Will Acquire 25.1 Percent Stake In Air India Group

The agreement between Singapore Airlines and Tata Sons will give Air India an additional SGD 360 million (USD 267 million). After Air India is acquired by Tata and merges with Vistara Airlines, it will give SIA a 25.1 percent stake in the larger Air India group.

The deal was done in November last year between Singapore Airlines and Tata Sons to further inject 267 million US dollar into Air India is one of the strategic moves for further growth mentioned in the quarterly financial report. The regulatory approval of this agreement is still pending.

Singapore Airlines in a statement said that “The merged entity will be four to five times larger in scale compared to Vistara, with a strong presence in all key airline segments in India. The proposed merger will bolster SIA’s presence in India, strengthen its multi-hub strategy, and allow it to continue participating directly in this large and fast-growing aviation market.”

The airline further added, “Deeper collaboration with like-minded airlines is an integral part of the SIA Group’s partnerships strategy. This enables SIA and its partners to drive more traffic to their hubs, offer more options to customers, and increase the Group’s global footprint.”

Singapore Airlines Q3 report

Singapore Airlines last week revealed that its quarter 3 net profit, which ended in December, was 628 million Singapore dollars (USD 465 million), and that its total revenue for the year had reached 1,555 million Singapore dollars (USD 1,152 million). The airline has never made more money in a quarter or the first nine months of a fiscal year combined.

Singapore Airlines starts in the month of April. On which, airlines said that “the robust demand for air travel continues into the third quarter of financial year 2022-23, building on the momentum that began after Singapore relaxed its border restrictions in April 2022.”

While making an announcement on February 13, Singapore said that they had relaxed the Covid restrictions. Travellers who are partially vaccinated do not have to show the negative pre-departure report before entering Singapore and do not need to buy travel insurance to cover the Covid treatment if they fall ill in their country. The use of wearing mask is also not necessary from now onwards. The covid-era protocol is no longer mandatory.

One of the first Asian nations to reopen after the Covid pandemic was Singapore, and this has helped the nation’s airline and tourism industries. The airline managed to raise SGD 22.4 billion (USD 16.6 billion) during Covid, including SGD 15 billion from shareholders, the largest of which is state investment firm Temasek Holdings, through sales of shares and convertible bonds. In addition to government grants to affected industries during Covid, the airline was also the beneficiary of investors’ and financial institutions’ confidence in its operations. It still had a cash balance of SGD 15.4 billion as of December 2022.

Passengers carried by Singapore Airlines

As a result, it was able to retain the majority of its workforce and fleet and quickly restore its routes after traffic was resumed. In contrast, several regional airlines had to lay off employees and sell off their fleets in order to remain in business. According to SIA, its group passenger capacity surpassed pre-Covid levels by 80 percent in December 2022, above the region’s average of 51 percent.

7.4 million passengers were carried by its two primary airline brands in the third quarter, an increase of 17 percent from the previous quarter. The Singapore Airlines Group carried 18.8 million passengers through the first nine months of the fiscal year when the first two quarters are combined together. This is none fold increase from the year 2021 when most of the borders were closed.