Taylor Swift: Singapore’s Love Story | Aviation Market Analysis

For Singapore based Swifties last month their wildest dreams came true. With the long awaited Eras tour coming to town, the Taylor gigs really were the hottest ticket. With Singapore having played a mastermind move to guarantee exclusivity on hosting the tour for the entire Asian region, the only place to be was Singapore if you were one of the lucky ones to secure a ticket. Singapore’s neighbours knew all too well that they’d missed out on the significant economic benefits generated by hosting Taylor, and Singapore might find just find itself the anti-hero in the next round of ASEAN meetings.

Estimates were that the 6 night run would increase Singapore’s GDP by 0.2% in the first quarter of 2024 – equivalent to around USD$200-300m – and anyone trying to get a hotel room or flight into Singapore during early March would have paid handsomely for the privilege, but do the capacity numbers show a big increase during those days?

Here at OAG we’ve crunched the numbers and while we wait to see how traffic numbers performed once they’re published in a month or two, we’ve taken a look at schedules data to see if we can spot any high spots. 

LONG LIVE The swift effect?

Undoubtedly the 300,000 fans across Asia who reportedly attended were keen to avoid a cruel summer and spend whatever it took to get to Singapore, but did everyone travel on a Tuesday? Capacity in March 2024 was running at 21% on average ahead of March 2023, however in the 10 day period covered by the concert, we saw some spikes in capacity above that trend, in particular on Tuesday 5th March when seats were 26.9% higher than the same day the previous year. Friday 1st March also saw a bit of a surge, with capacity up by 25%, undoubtedly as those first arrivals flew in for the concert dates over that weekend. It also looks like nobody was leaving it until Saturday for the concert on the 9th, as capacity was just in line with trend that day. 

LONG STORY SHORT…

The reality is that often airlines don’t have spare capacity to deploy in the case of music concerts – even the biggest ones in the world, or sporting events – especially at a time when the industry continues to struggle with a lack of resources, aircraft and ongoing maintenance issues. So we often see airlines pushing up prices to fill the seats they have, and undoubtedly this period was a profitable one for all concerned – for airlines, hotels, and the wider tourism ecosystem.

With fans hoping that Taylor might be persuaded to come back to other parts of Asia in 2025, we look forward to seeing where she goes next and if this triggers another exclusive deal. Karma perhaps for those countries who missed out?