Bonus amounts to eight months' salary

Singapore Airlines has recorded its highest annual profit ever, driven by high airfares, robust demand and a high load factor, leading to an overflowing cash register.

Net profit totaled CHF 1.8 billion, a 24 percent increase from the previous year's CHF 1.45 billion, setting a new record.

Demand for air travel remained high throughout the 2023/24 financial year, boosted by an increase in North Asia after China, Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan fully reopened their borders.

But what happens to the big profit? According to the news agency Bloomberg, part of it will go to employees in the form of a bonus payment. And it’s a considerable amount: the additional salary payment amounts to eight monthly salaries. A windfall of this magnitude is probably unrivalled in the tourism and aviation industries. Other airlines are also being generous: Emirates, for instance, pays its 112,000 employees around five months' wages as a bonus.

The employees of Singapore Airlines, however, may have become accustomed to such generosity: In the previous year, an extremely large bonus totalling more than six months' salary flowed into their accounts, intended as recognition for their efforts during the Covid-19 pandemic.