Airways the world over are reporting a surge in enterprise as vacationers go touring once more. Carriers earned a complete internet revenue of $32.4 billion final yr, up 18% from the yr earlier than, whereas passenger numbers hit a brand new excessive of 4.8 billion.
In Southeast Asia, airways like VietJet, Thai Airways, and Garuda Indonesia posted double-digit income progress final yr. However probably the most spectacular efficiency got here not from a service, however somewhat an organization that retains its ft on the bottom.
Singapore’s SATS, which supplies an array of companies together with meals preparation, air cargo dealing with and passenger companies, tripled its income in 2024, lifting the corporate to No. 93, a soar of 134 locations, on this yr’s Southeast Asia 500. SATS’s 2024 income now stands at $3.8 billion. SATS was the most important climber on this yr’s checklist, not together with newcomers.
A lot of SATS’s income progress comes after its accomplished acquisition of Worldwide Flight Companies (WFS), a worldwide air cargo logistics supplier. SATS purchased the corporate for 1.3 billion euros ($1.5 billion at present alternate charges) in a deal introduced in early 2023.
SATS’s acquisition of WFS now makes the Asia-centric firm rather more of a world participant. WFS is the world’s largest cargo dealing with agency, and is a significant participant in each Europe and the Americas.
A mixed SATS-WFS has a mixed attain of greater than 215 places worldwide, masking commerce routes chargeable for greater than half of world air cargo quantity.
SATS’s historical past stems again to the early days of economic aviation in Singapore, beginning as the bottom division for Malayan Airways. That airline later cut up into Singapore Airways (SIA) and Malaysian Airline Programs. SIA then established its floor dealing with enterprise as a separate enterprise in 1972.
Now, SATS is the primary air cargo, floor dealing with and inflight-catering companies supplier for Singapore’s largest civilian worldwide airport, Changi Airport. SATS has since expanded its footprint all through Asia, forming joint ventures in markets like mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Indonesia.
In its most up-to-date monetary report for the quarter ending March 2025, SATS reported a 13% soar in income year-on-year to achieve 5.8 billion Singapore {dollars} ($4.53 billion at present alternate charges), pushed by a progress in enterprise quantity and income contributions from its expanded community.
“Our cargo volumes have constantly outperformed IATA’s international progress benchmarks, demonstrating our potential to leverage our expanded community to safe new contracts,” SATS stated in its annual report.
The corporate goals to hit 8 billion Singapore {dollars} ($6.2 billion) in income by the tip of its 2029 fiscal yr, because of a bigger community, progress in Asia-Pacific passenger volumes, and Singapore’s position as an aviation hub.
