Singapore Airlines defends its decision to invest in loss-making Air India: ‘We know the market and how difficult it feels’

Losses at struggling Air India helped to drag down profits at Singapore Airlines last year, even as the city-state’s flagship carrier reported record revenue and passenger traffic. SIA reported a 57.4% drop in net income to 1.2 billion Singapore dollars ($927 million) for its 2025 fiscal year, which ended in March. Profits were partially eroded by a loss of 945 million Singapore dollars ($739 million) from SIA’s investment in Air India. The airline still reported record revenue of $20.5 billion, buoyed by strong global demand for air travel. SIA and its low-cost subsidiary Scoot carried 42.4 million passengers. “We have been operating within India for a long time, so we know the market and how difficult it feels,” said CEO Goh Choon Pong at a May 15 press briefing, following the release of the company’s earnings the day before. Yet he claimed the market still holds “tremendous potential,” citing a growing middle class, set to surpass 800 million by 2047, and a proliferation of new airports. SIA first ventured into India in 2013 through a joint venture with Tata Sons, setting up Vistara, a luxury carrier. Tata later took over the beleaguered state-owned Air India in 2022, and appointed Campbell Wilson, a long-time SIA executive and CEO of Scoot, as its CEO. The Indian company then integrated Vistara into the national carrier, turning SIA’s 49% stake in Vistara into a 25.1% stake in the larger Air India group. Despite a boom in outbound tourism, Air India reported a record loss of $2.8 billion in its 2025 fiscal year, after a year of scrutiny on the airline following the AI171 crash in Gujarat, India, which killed 260 people. The airline has also lost its CEO: Wilson resigned from the position in April, though he will remain in the role until Air India’s board finds a successor. “The airline is significantly reducing frequencies—especially of international flights, but also domestic flights—while they relook all their processes,” Goh said. SIA has seconded team