Singapore Airlines has a secret agenda.
Singapore Air has a secret agenda, claims the Frightened Kangaroo
Sydney Morning Herald
By Scott Rochfort
June 10, 2005
Qantas has warned that Singapore Airlines' plans to enter the lucrative Sydney to Los Angeles route could be part of a longer-term - and covert - strategy by the Asian carrier to eventually drive the Flying Kangaroo out of business.
With Federal Cabinet expected to make a decision as early as next week on whether to grant Singapore Air access to the route from Australia to the US, Qantas chief financial officer Peter Gregg said: "The long-term aim is for them to be the biggest, the best - and if that means knocking people over on the way through, Qantas is not the only one they are taking aim at."
Raising concerns about the growing influence of government-owned airlines, including Emirates, Mr Gregg said: "They would like to see the back of Qantas and take this market for themselves, with the consequent loss of the 38,000 jobs in Australia that we've got."
Mr Gregg said the public needed to note the "uneven" advantages Singapore Air had over Qantas, such as its lower corporate taxes, lower labour costs and the effect government-owned foreign airlines could have on the Australian aviation sector if they were granted more access to Australian routes.
Let's not just focus on the Pacific route. Let's focus on the totality of what we're trying to deliver for Australia and for Australians versus what Singapore Airlines is trying to deliver for Singapore and Singaporeans - which is bring more people through the Singapore hub."
In response to a report commissioned by Singapore Air which claimed the lack of competition on the US air route was costing Australia $126 million a year in lost tourist revenue, Mr Gregg said: "For them to come and address one route in our network as being … of paramount importance to them when we provide so many other routes to network Australia to the rest of the world - [that] is a question that needs to be considered.
"Why is that so? It's so because they believe they can produce a higher return. It's called cherry picking."
Claiming largely government-owned carriers such as Singapore Air did not have the pressure to return high levels of dividends to shareholders, Mr Gregg said: "They drop their return with the sole aim of driving commercial airlines out of business."
The publicly listed Singapore Air generates a dividend yield of about 3.95 per cent, compared with Qantas's 5.1 per cent.
Singapore Air spokesman Stephen Foreshaw said Qantas's comments were "sounding increasingly desperate".