Checking In With Singapore Airlines CEO

[jonleong]

Some of you may already have seen this but I just watched it last week and was having a chuckle to myself from Goh Choon Phong's reaction when challenged by Haslinda Amin about Singapore Airlines losing it's edge - watch from 02:20 onwards - http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos...oh-choon-phong

It's one thing to defend your company's brand but to flatly state otherwise when it's so damn obvious is scary as is Singapore Airlines' senior management so out of touch with reality that they really think all is well?

Thoughts?

[CarbonMan]

It's one thing to defend your company's brand but to flatly state otherwise when it's so damn obvious is scary as is Singapore Airlines' senior management so out of touch with reality that they really think all is well?

Thoughts?

It's a public interview, so he has been trained by his PR team to spin it (but not very well, I must add). He did not answer many of the hard questions as you can see but deflected it. The airline industry is in a very different cycle than when it was 20-30 years ago. For too long they have rested on the philosophy and strategy thought up by the first generation of leaders. Now they are indeed waking up to the fact that there are serious competitors out there and that they can no longer depend on low labour cost and fuel costs, and geographic advantages anymore. Goh is good as far as his qualifications but SQ lack a visionary kind of leader to bring them to another level that no one else is and I'm not sure the Board has the risk-taking profile to do it.

I hope they succeed.