Singapore Airlines- Still A Great Way to Fly?

My take on why SIA is in such bad financial shape

Singapore Airlines--the carrier that Singapore prides itself in--is synonymous with service, value for money and of course, with the quintessential image of the Singapore Girl. A great way to fly. No longer, it seems.

As of the first half of its financial year 2009, it has suffered a loss of S$466 million; not exactly a dismal figure, compared to some other airlines. But it is rather unprecedented for a company that has achieved solid profits and received glowing accolades year after year. Surely, it must be a financial earthquake tantamount to what is felt by its biggest shareholder when it managed to chalk up huge losses in recent times.

Based on anecdotal evidence, service with a smile has turned into service with a frown. Something is not quite right with the SIA girl; or so it appears. It is easy to point the finger and say that the SIA girl turns up her nose at locals and cuddles up to foreigners of a different skin colour. While there may be some truth to this, I suspect the malaise runs deeper: could its management have turned arrogant and lost touch with the most important group of people, for which the company exists--its customers?

I have never taken a SIA flight for as long as I can remember; neither have I bought into its shares even though I know it pays good dividends. But I do know that many other carriers are giving it a run for its money, including budget carriers such as AirAsia, JetStarAsia and Tiger Airways (wait..don't they belong to the same people? Maybe not Tiger Airways). Granted, they are not the same; one is serving it up to the well-healed, the others are serving up cup noodles for $5 to hungry, willing-to-pay customers (you can't see the former CEO of NKF taking a Tiger flight, can you?). But my experience with AirAsia has been good, in fact, very good, so much so that I don't see a need to travel by SIA even if I strike ToTo for six million dollars tomorrow. (Ok...I concede that for long haul flights, maybe I might just consider taking a SIA flight, but only if it is price competitive).

I hope my view is not representative of the general masses, otherwise the management of SIA will have to take a hard look at the modus operandi of the company, if it is not already doing so. To a certain extent, the problems at SIA should be a malady acutely felt by the masters of the land, if it is not already feeling that. Have they lost touch with the base? Have they become too arrogant for their own good? Have they forgotten their CLIENTS to whom they should serve, rather than turn defensive at the slightest hint of perceived wrongdoing? They will do well to heed the advertisement tagline of an international household name involved in financial products. It reads something like this:

'We believe the best financial solutions start with listening'. If true to form, it beats a 'great way to fly' anytime.

Eye Sore? Or the Last Remaining Historical Relic

Somewhere in the heart of town, there is a monumental and rather imposing colonial building that serves reminder of time past. Here, you can board a train bound for Malaysia, with stopovers at big, small, sleepy and bustling towns and cities throughout the Malay Peninsula. If you want a sense of being transported back in time, to the part of Singapore’s history when it was still part of the Federation of Malaya (stop short of watching superficial Mediacorp productions like ‘Little Nonya’), this is the place to be.

Today, it is a thorn in the flesh for the masters of the land; legally, this plot of land along Keppel Road belongs to Malaysia. Hence, if you are taking the train from this building known as the Tanjong Pagar KTM Train Station, you are stepping onto Malaysian soil; the clear manifestation of that territorial right is that you have to clear Malaysian immigration customs before boarding the train. Upon reaching Woodlands, you alight the train and clear Singapore customs. If you are awake as you are reading this, you will realise something amiss: shouldn’t the sequence of immigration clearance be the OTHER WAY round? I have wondered myself; but this isn’t a question for students of rocket science, but of local history. Singapore was part of the Malayan Federation until it was unceremoniously booted out by Malaya.

History aside, this building stands to tell us that something has given way to the relentless push for progress and development. Not that being progressive is an evil, but this country pursues efficiency and economic expediency to a fault. So many historical relics have made way for modern, glossy architecture, with little human spirit. Can new shopping malls like ION Orchard, Iluma and Orchard Central tell us something about our identity? I fear for the younger generation that they will become a ‘lost generation’, only concerned with their own monetary and selfish pursuits. If that scenario comes true, we might regret FOLLOWING the path of economic expediency, as expounded by the masters of the land, to the point of having reduced everyone to an ‘economic animal’. By which time, hopefully, the Tanjong Pagar Train Station will STILL be around, perhaps to out-live the ‘receiver’ of its thorn.

A walk along the dusty side

Ho Chi Minh City. A city very unlike Singapore. You would go as much as to say that it is Singapore in the 70s, and you cannot be too wrong about it, judging from the less than modern and world-class infrastructure. Pavements not properly cemented, pollution brought about by the sheer numbers of motorcycles cruising through the narrow streets, just to name a few grouses a typical Singaporean would utter. Little wonder, especially when we are being constantly fed with a diet of state-sanctioned proclaimations that everything has to be "world-class" and "first-world".

Yet, there is something admirable about this people -their ability to survive the harsh conditions and against the odds (don't forget they fought two superpowers in the last century and drove them away). If that is something to be proud of, they are not wearing that emotion on their sleeves (there again, maybe not, for decades of war has caused widespread poverty in many parts of the country, with an average GDP per capita of US$1,024 as of year 2008.)

Before we find ourselves feeling a swell of pride that in terms of GDP per capita we are far ahead, let's take a moment and reflect: besides GDP figures and many other indicators that will give credence to the view that Singapore is a "little paradise", what would indicators that measure family values, national pride, feelings of well-being and HAPPINESS tell us? I suspect it will be an ugly reflection, if these are the mirror images that show us for who we are.

"Hardworking", "uncomplaining", "adaptable" are some of the adjectives I can garner to describe them (should I include subservient?) I wonder if we can say that of the large majority of Singaporeans, perhaps with the exception of the rather unflattering adjective at the tail end? Again, we can only be what we have been socially engineered to become.

Good morning Vietnam...and good afternoon and evening

In this issue...you will see my adventures (or misadventures) in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.