Thursday 28 Mar 2024
By
main news image

SINGAPORE (May 26): Singapore Airlines today is markedly different from what it was a decade ago. It has started budget operations, set up an overseas venture — Vistara in India — and gone into related businesses, such as setting up a pilot training centre with Airbus.

The SIA brand also continues to be synonymous with premium travel, setting the standard for inflight services globally and selling tickets at premium prices.

But SIA is struggling to make money and observers say it could be time for the carrier to set aside glamour and take a hard look at how to revive profitability.

CEO Goh Choon Phong has also promised a “radical” review of operations and organisational structure.

SIA has set up a business transformation office with six staff who report directly to Goh.

He says the restructuring would focus on revenue-generation and changes would be made, “even if it means we have to incur costs in the beginning”.

Much of it will be touching on legacy practices and current ways of doing things,” he says at the airline group’s results briefing.

“Not the incremental change that we do every year, but really fundamentally look at and question ourselves, ‘Is this the right approach?’”

So, what more can SIA do? How radical would the changes be? How would they go down with the group’s employees and investors? Would they suffice?


Find out more in the May 29 issue of The Edge Singapore which is on sale now.

      Print
      Text Size
      Share