SIA sees plenty of recovery growth even without China

The Singapore Airlines Group feels it has plenty of room for recovery growth before the continued closure of the China market makes itself felt. China was a strategic market for mainline SIA and low-cost carrier Scoot before the coronavirus pandemic started in Wuhan in late 2019, but now Mainland China remains all but entirely shutoff owing to tough travel restrictions stemming from the country’s ‘zero-Covid’ policy. SIA Group CE Goh Choon Phong says that the absence of China affects Scoot more than SIA, but believes there is nonetheless plenty of space to rebuild the group’s overall network. “We do not expect [China’s continued closure] to impact us significantly in this first year of recovery because we are ramping up on all of the other points,” he says. “We have plenty of room to ramp up from that point before we even start reaching the point where we need to add back China. This year’s growth is still going to be very strong even without China.”<br/>