AirlineRatings names 'most excellent' airlines for 2018

[Mista]

Is SIA really good? Many of my countrymen actually find it overrated and expensive. I want to hear some opinions from foreigners.

 

[jhungary]

Is SIA really good? Many of my countrymen actually find it overrated and expensive. I want to hear some opinions from foreigners.

My wife used to work for Qantas before she sat the Bar. Qantas is probably one of the most horrible service in the world. It does not quite deserve second spot.

SIA is good experience and all, you are right, it is a bit expensive but money is not really a matter. I would rate both SIA and Cathay above Qantas for sure. They do care about their passenger.

But no doubt AirNZ is number one.

 

[Mista]

Singapore Airlines has a colorful history with the first PM of Singapore to get where she is today. For those who are interested.

1980 Pilots strike:

Back in 1980, Singapore Airlines (SIA) hit a pretty rough patch and its reputation took a bad hit.

Profits were down for the airline, it had a dispute with its pilots’ union, and it was accused of shoddy treatment of its passengers affected by a strike by Australian refuellers.

Dispute with pilots’ union
The pilot unions’ dispute, in particular, was perhaps the biggest cause for concern because it showed that all was not well within the organisation itself.


And, if allowed to fester, the problem would get ingrained into the organisational culture over time and make things worse.

The dispute came about because the Singapore Airlines Pilots’ Association (SIAPA) pushed SIA for a 30 percent increase in basic salaries and better working conditions.

To get its way, SIAPA launched an illegal work-to-rule industrial action.

A work-to-rule action is one where employees work no more than the bare minimum that is stated in their employment contracts. It is essentially targeted at reducing output and efficiency.

Following SIAPA’s illegal act, three SIA pilots and a flight engineer disrupted their Dubai to London flight during their stopover in Zurich on Nov. 16, 1980. They had supported the work-to-rule by refusing to work beyond their 12-hour duty time.


The dispute was coming to a head and decisive action had to be taken to quell the problem.

All the technical crew involved in disrupting the SIA flight were sacked by SIA and charged in court for carrying out the illegal industrial action.

But that was merely the addressing of a symptom of a larger problem. SIA and SIAPA were still locked in the ongoing dispute with no resolution in sight.

So the government stepped in.

Enter Lee Kuan Yew
On Dec. 15, 1980, SIAPA and its key leaders were charged in court for illegally launching the work-to-rule industrial action without first taking a secret ballot.

On Dec. 1, 1980, SIAPA’s key leaders were summoned to Lee’s office at the Istana for meeting.

Incidentally, happening during the same period was the 1980 General Election (GE), with Nomination Day on Dec. 13 and Polling Day on Dec. 23.

What happened during Lee’s meeting with the pilots at the Istana has become the stuff of legend, which Lee himself recounted in a 1980 GE rally speech:

“I can tell you that when I met the SIA pilots, I didn’t meet them on TV, I met them face-to-face. Five feet across the table so they can see me, and see whether I’m still vigorous, able to campaign and take them on. Whether it’s worth taking me on.

And I offered them two choices. Either you stop this intimidation, which is what it was, bringing SIA right down. Disrupting services, ruining its reputation.

Millions of dollars worth of advertisements and sales ruined within a matter of two weeks.

I gave them a choice. Continue this and I will by every means at my disposal teach you and get the people of Singapore to help me teach you a lesson you won’t forget.

And I’m prepared to start all over again or stop it! Get back to work, restore discipline, then argue your case.

Took them 65 minutes and they decided ok it isn’t worth the fight.

Why? Because they know they’ll lose.

They know that I’m prepared to ground the airline. They know that I can get the airline going again without them.

And let there be no mistakes about it. Whoever governs Singapore must have that iron in him. Or give it up. This is not a game of cards. This is your life and mine. I spent a whole lifetime building this. And as long as I’m in charge, nobody’s going to knock it down.”

And with that, the matter with SIA was resolved.

https://mothership.sg/2017/11/lee-kuan-yew-singapore-airlines-union/

2003 Pilots strike:

Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew issued a stern warning to Singapore Airlines pilots on Monday that the Government will not allow them to go slow or work-to-rule, which would damage the airline’s reputation and cost it hundreds of millions of dollars in losses in a matter of months. He made the remarks in a speech and a question-and-answer session at the Global Branding Forum. He also spoke about his style of governing compared to that of the younger ministers and the branding of Singapore. We reproduce excerpts:

RIGHT at this moment, we’re having a little problem with our pilots.

Because of Sars, Singapore Airlines lost a few hundred million dollars that quarter. They persuaded, with the help of the Ministry of Manpower, the unions – not just the pilots’ union but the five unions across the board in SIA – to take pay cuts, adjust work schedules and generally trim down.

But the second quarter, July to September, they showed a profit. Whereupon the pilots say: ‘We’ve been taken for a ride.’ They sack the committee.

But they approved it and this is just the first glimmer of recovery in an industry that’s facing very grave challenges.

No one can say how mainline carriers will fare in the next one, two years. Budget carriers are coming into Asia and it’s a matter of time before they pose the same challenge to mainline carriers as they do in America and now increasingly in Europe.

But the pilots’ union is not interested in that. They just say: ‘You squeezed us when the going was bad, now we want it back.’

Well, we’re not going to have that. Both management at SIA and the pilots’ union, and all the unions in SIA, know that when the Government decides that its industrial relations is a key factor in its progress, in its economic well-being, and it says no, it means no.

And if they’re confrontational, then either the union gives way or the union is able to knock the Government down.

Now in Europe, when Air France goes on strike, sometimes the minister has to resign or Air France management has to make adjustments.

I can assure you that in Singapore, when we decide that they are breaking the rules of the game, the unspoken rules as to how we survive, how we have prospered, then either their head is broken or our bones are broken.

And when that is understood, we then talk sense.

I come back to the pilots. They’re a special breed. The pilots know that the company has spent half a million or three-quarters of a million dollars training a person to fly a 747.

So, it’s a capital-intensive industry and if they decide to go slow or walk out, then all that capital is just going to lie frozen on the ground.

So after the Sars debacle, SIA lost money for the first time in its history, they accepted the pay cuts, no-pay leave, certain adjustments in work schedules with a proviso that if SIA makes money, as it makes money it will restore all its cuts.

And it goes up to 115 per cent of what was taken away if it proves to be as successful as last year.

When – after settling this and voting in favour of the executive committee saying, ‘yes, we support this’ – SIA makes $300 million in one quarter, they decide ‘We’ll sack the committee, we’re going to take over. This collective agreement ends in a few months, we’re going to be tough’.

If we sit back, and SIA has had troubles with the pilots for a long time, as I’ve said, they think they’re special, they’ve got huge egos, I’m told.

So, for instance, when SIA changes first-class seats to totally flat reclining seats and so there are fewer first-class seats. I think now the first-class cabin, from my recollection, has only about 12 seats when there used to be 16 or 18 seats.

The captains were allowed, when they were resting, to take a first-class seat which could recline.

But now, there are not enough first-class seats. The company says: ‘We will pay you the difference.’ No, they want the first-class seat. In other words, there’ll be fewer than 12 passengers if you have two being used by pilots.

We know that, if we allow this to go on, there’ll be a go-slow, there’ll be some work-to-rule and we’ll get the Cathay Pacific situation.

Now you can have that in Hong Kong. You’re not going to have that in Singapore. I will not allow that because I literally decided, in the early days, that I will preserve this potential business for Singapore.

We had Malayan Airways, which was based here. When we joined Malaysia, we became Malaysia-Singapore Airlines, a joint airline.

Then they decided they wanted to go off on their own so we built up workshops in Kuala Lumpur so they could go off.

And from that moment, way back in the 1960s, we built ourselves up as an international airline because, where were we going to fly to? From Changi Airport to Sembawang Airport, to Seletar, to Paya Lebar?

So we had to go international or nothing.

Today, with our population of three million – plus another one million foreigners, it’s four million – we are carrying the loads of Australia, with a population of 20 million, or for that matter, many other airlines.

In other words, we’re carrying other people’s passengers. There’s no catchment here.

You do that because your service is not only safe, it’s not only reliable, but it is exceptionally good.

This is a service industry. You have stewards or stewardesses or pilots playing work-to-rule, you lose that cachet. So we are telling them, both management and unions, ‘you play this game, there are going to be broken heads’. Let’s stop it.

They know what this is all about. We are not fools. We know what the management knows. We know the union side too because we’ve got unionists on our side and we are going to solve this before it gets troublesome and solve it we will.

If we sit back and do nothing and allow this to escalate and test the wills, then it is going to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in one, two, three months of nastiness. We are not going to have that.

I belong to the old school. I believe that it is better to be feared than to be loved. My younger colleagues sometimes want to be both.

I decided a long time ago that popularity is something volatile. They feel good, they get their bonuses, you’re popular.

They are squeezed, there’s a recession, you’re blamed for it, your stocks go down. And the key is not to hold an election when people are not feeling good.

I do not believe that popular government means you have to be popular when you govern. I think the best thing to do is to do all the unpopular things when you are governing so that at the end of your term, you have the choice of a date when you feel that they will be most grateful that you’ve done all these unpopular things and they vote for you.

I don’t know about branding. I do know that you need a good reputation, not just outside Singapore but within Singapore, with your own people.

This is a place that works, that must work and continue to work because it is based on principles. And the first principle is nobody owes us a living.

http://acorn.nationalinterest.in/2003/12/03/lee-kuan-yew-govt-cannot-let-pilots-have-their-way/

Towards the beginning of 2004; sensing a potentially major crisis is about to unfold before his eyes, SM Lee Kuan Yew stepped in.

He invited cordially all the leading members of Alpa-S who are involved in the 'pay strike' saga to the Istana for a 'meeting'. The purpose of the meeting is so that the government can listen to the pilots' side of the story and to help resolve the issue.

As the pilots were all ushered into the open-meeting, with the 'Alpha-S' pilots sitting on 1 side of the long table and Lee Kuan Yew at the center on the other side flanked by his ministers, NTUC union chief, SIA executives, etc, little have they known that LKY had already instructed a deep investigation and background checks into all the leading members of Alpha-S who were threatening the 'pay strike' against SIA.

Towards the end of the 'meeting', Lee Kuan Yew exposed Captain Goh.

The 43 year old pilot leading the 'pay strike' who is a Malaysian holding a Singapore PR (approved in 1981) and Australian PR (approved in 2002).

The below are an excerpt of an article on the meeting:

"Reading from a file, Mr Lee pulled out the following facts about Captain Goh.

A Malaysian with permanent residence status here, he had accepted Australian PR in 2002, moved his wife and children to Perth, shipped his car and sold his flat.

You told someone from IE Singapore that the grass had stopped growing in Singapore, did you not, [SM Lee Kuan Yew] asked.

He turned to one of the pilots and asked if he knew the Malaysian had bought a house in Australia and had this option to bail out.

No, the person answered.

'No?' repeated Mr Lee.

'That's deception, isn't it?' he asked Capt Goh.

The pilot in the hot seat tried to defend himself but it was too late. The line in the sand between him and the Singaporeans had been drawn for him.

'My daughter is still in school here,' he tried saying, adding this showed he still had roots in Singapore.

But wasn't that because she did not like school in Australia and came back, Mr Lee shot back calmly.

Silence.

The castigation, no doubt a tactic of divide-and-rule, also established a more significant point: It is not up to PRs or other foreigners to get into union matters and play around with decisions that affect the rest of Singaporeans.

Capt Goh had tried to undermine the interests of SIA and Singapore, he said. 'If Singapore goes down, you go down,' he told the Singaporeans across the table. 'He doesn't go down.'

With that out of the way, he laid out what he wanted to achieve out of the meeting: a fresh start.

'You play straight with me, I play straight with you. You play ducks and drakes with me, I play ducks and drakes with you,' he told them.

'Tell me whether we can cooperate.'

Yes, they could tell him one thing and act another way, but he was not interested in that.

'I don't hold you to blame for everything. Nor is the management responsible for all the things that have gone wrong. 'I want to create a new partnership of trust and cooperation, not confrontation,' he said."

The pay-strike instigator's personal 'back-up plans' had been fully exposed and laid bare before the Alpha-S members, struck with sudden realisation from the latest revelations about their ring-leader which they have not learnt before.

Shortly, just a few days later, Captain Goh's PR status was revoked:

"CAPTAIN Ryan Goh Yew Hock, the Singapore Airlines (SIA) pilot singled out as the instigator behind last year's ouster of the pilot union's executive committee, has been served notice that his Singapore permanent residency (PR) is to be revoked.

The Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) confirmed last night that it informed Capt Goh on Friday - when he returned from a flight - of its intention to cancel his entry and re-entry permits, which are necessary for PRs here.

'Mr Goh will no longer be a permanent resident of Singapore once his Entry Permit and Re-Entry Permits are cancelled,' the ICA said in a statement in response to queries from The Sunday Times.

'Mr Goh was informed that he may, within the next seven days, make written representation to the Controller of Immigration against such action.'

The 43-year-old Malaysian citizen, who has been a Singapore PR since 1981, said last night that the decision was 'disappointing'.

'I intend to appeal and I hope the authorities will look at my appeal favourably.

'This is after all my home. I have been here for 26 years,' was all he wanted to say when asked about the ICA statement.

The ICA said it acted against him after the Home Affairs Minister 'decided that Mr Goh was an undesirable immigrant' as defined by Section 8(3)(k) of the Immigration Act.

Section 8(3) of the Act defines persons who are considered prohibited immigrants and therefore barred from Singapore. This includes 'an undesirable immigrant' as defined in Section 8(3)(k) which reads:

'Any person who, in consequence of information received from any source or from any government through official or diplomatic channels, is considered by the Minister to be an undesirable immigrant.'

The ICA added that the Controller of Immigration will decide whether to cancel the entry and re-entry permits issued to Capt Goh 'and to declare his presence in Singapore unlawful after considering his written representation, if any'.

Capt Goh was singled out by Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew at an Istana meeting with pilots on Feb 26 for 'instigating' a leadership ouster in the Air Line Pilots Association Singapore (Alpa-S) last November.

At the meeting, he was accused of working behind the scenes, crafting a petition to oust the council, but not signing it himself.

It was revealed that prior to his moves against the union leadership, he had, in November 2002, accepted Australian PR. He bought a house in Perth, moved his wife and children and shipped his car there, and had sold his flat in Toa Payoh.

The upshot was that Capt Goh had kept secret his plans to widen his options while he moved behind the scenes to undermine industrial peace in SIA, which would also affect the interests of Singapore.

FOR the first time since he retired as prime minister 13 years ago, Lee Kuan Yew has emerged to show young Singaporeans how tough he can be when facing a threat.

The 80-year-old Senior Minister said he was taking personal charge to “clean up” a problem posed by the 1700-member pilots union of Singapore Airlines (SIA), possibly heading off a potential strike.

Obviously feeling the government’s response was slow or inadequate, Lee came out swinging, providing young Singaporeans a glimpse of how he used to handle problems during his time.

He warned of “cracking heads” if the pilots union moved towards a strike that could rip apart Singapore’s aviation and tourism-related businesses, which employ 220,000 people.

Specifically, Lee is worried about the future of the national carrier, one of the world’s most successful, and Changi Airport even without the pilots’ action.

These two major assets have entered 2004 with a severe challenge from budget airlines and the advent of long-haul aircraft which could bypass Singapore as a stopover point.

By moving into attack mode, the ageing senior minister has made good his pledge to “speak out” in times of turmoil.

In 1990, when he retired as Prime Minister, he likened his advisory role to that of a goalkeeper keeping the city out of trouble.

However, he added, he would never retire from politics and would even “rise up from my grave” if things went wrong.

Today, he appears to be doing just that – except it is more than just talk.

First, Lee warned the recalcitrant pilots that he would “break heads” if necessary to stop potential industrial action against SIA.

Some 55% of the pilots had recently voted to sack its leaders for accepting a 16.5% pay-cut during last year’s business slump caused by SARS.

To the government, SIA’s majority owner, this was tantamount to preparing for war since both parties were about to negotiate a new wage structure.

Using the language that earned him a fearsome reputation as an authoritarian leader, Lee said the government was prepared to go to the brink, and it was no bluff.

“This is a very serious game of brinkmanship we are playing.

“The rest (45%) decided not to sack the old committee, so we have 45% who will stay,” Lee told the Straits Times.

“Of the 55% who will leave, I think we are prepared to see half of them go, or if worse comes to the worst, all go.”

The message appeared to have sunk in. Newly elected union president Mok Hin Choon says he wants to heal the rift.

Explaining his harsh action, Lee said what was at stake was the future of SIA and Changi Airport, which were already facing threats from budget airlines and long-haul aircraft.

He called on SIA to deal fairly during the talks with the pilots but made it clear he wanted no strike or industrial action.

Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong also warned the pilots that the airline would be grounded if they went on strike.

“No group of employees in Singapore should act without regard for the impact on others, or hold the company and fellow workers hostage to their narrow self-interests,” Goh added.

But that may not be the end of the trouble. Lee has warned of more SIA cost-cutting, and retrenchment.

He said further job losses at SIA would be inevitable as the airline cuts costs to become trim, and fight and win in a more difficult environment.

The carrier had to look at its various cost components and remove redundancies, he added.

While it needs to reduce costs by 10% to 15%, some costs could not be compromised, such as those for fuel – which make up about a fifth of the total bill – and maintenance, as well as for the food it serves.

While wages make up 15% to 20% of the total cost, it did not mean SIA’s cost-reduction efforts should focus only on wages.

“I’ve had to study this problem because it needs to be looked into,” Lee said.

“The luxury of just carrying on as before is something we cannot afford.”

Lee’s toughness was no surprise to the older generation. But young Singaporeans, who are unused to this bare-knuckle style, were shocked by it.

A small liberal breed that dominates Internet groups was vocal, calling it dictatorial interference in what was a union-employer dispute.

His action may make it harder for his son, Hsien Loong, to convince Singaporeans that he will not inherit his father’s authoritarian characteristics when he takes over as Prime Minister this year.

There’s a widespread fear among Singaporeans that the open, responsive society under the milder PM Goh will come to an end.

One reason is the senior minister’s unchanged position after Hsien Loong, who is now Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, takes over.

All these years, he has retained a vast influence over the government and Singapore. Many people believe Hsien Loong will have a hard time – as had Goh – getting out from the senior minister’s shadow.

Others, however, see the father’s continuing presence as useful for Singapore as it encounters tough new challenges and dangers.

Obviously the public’s discomfort about him is high on Hsien Loong’s mind.

In an interview last week, he emphasised there will be no turning back of the clock when he takes over and the opening-up process will continue, and even pick up speed.

“I have no doubt that society will have to open up further,” he told a Harvard Club dinner.

Singapore was going through a transition not just because of a changing of the guard, but rather the world had changed irrevocably which precluded going back.

A younger generation born after independence now formed the majority, and strategies to grow the economy and bond the people to Singapore had to change.

And the Government? It “will pull back from being all things to all citizens”.

http://www.singapore-window.org/sw04/040111st.htm

2015:

SIA pilots gather to salute Mr Lee Kuan Yew

About 200 pilots stood in the pelting rain yesterday and saluted Mr Lee Kuan Yew, in a touching send-off for the man who once had a fractious relationship with their union.

Dressed in dark blue jackets with peak caps, the pilots of Singapore Airlines (SIA), Silkair and SIA Cargo were led by Captain Tan Peng Koon, honorary secretary of the Airline Pilots Association Singapore, or Alpa-S.

Alpa-S had clashed with Mr Lee in the past as they drew his ire over wage disputes with SIA.

But yesterday, pilots on their day off opted to pay homage to Mr Lee. They and their family members lined the road near One Marina Boulevard and OUE Bayfront buildings in Collyer Quay.

Holding umbrellas, instead of seeking shelter in nearby buildings, they waited for the state funeral procession of Singapore's founding Prime Minister. When the cortege approached, they put away their umbrellas and saluted in the pouring rain as a mark of respect.

Mr Lee had in 1980 taken the pilots' union to task for staging an unofficial work-to-rule protest in November, to demand a 30 per cent basic pay rise, among other things. After 10 days, Mr Lee, who was then Prime Minister, stepped in on Dec 1.



He summoned the union officials to the Istana and told them bluntly he would ground SIA, sack all the pilots and build a new national carrier unless all flight operations returned to normal and the airline's image, restored.

In 2003, Mr Lee spoke at a public forum and warned SIA management and pilots that there would be "broken heads" if tensions over wages continued to escalate.

Yesterday, Captain Tan said: "Mr Lee did what he had to do, the pilots then did what they felt was right. It was the past. Let bygones be bygones."

Added the 51-year-old Boeing 777 pilot as he removed his spectacles to wipe away tears: "Today, we are here to pay our respects to Mr Lee. Without him, there would be no SIA and no Singapore."

http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/sia-pilots-gather-to-salute-mr-lee-kuan-yew

 

[Pyr0test]

Cathay is always my go to airline, nice to see it on the list