Is Tony Weber schizophrenic? One moment he says QF needs to be nationalised and protected at all costs, (then in between he said fat people should pay more to fly), now he says SIA should be allowed to fly Australia-USA because it would bring Australia untold benefits?
Some of the factual errors in his article include SQ having to plead its case to the US authorities. SQ has unlimited 3rd, 4th and 5th freedoms from Australia to the USA so it does not need to ask the US for anything.
The second dumb thing he says is SQ should be forced to use Australian based cabin crew and pilots to fly to the USA. It's just like saying QF must be forced to use Singapore residents to fly SIN-LHR/FRA/BOM, or that EK must use Australian crew to fly SYD-BKK or MEL-AKL. Completely unworkable.
And anyway, it's not like SQ's cabin crew are paid any less than QF cabin crew - SGD4000-6000 a month for working 10 days a month (tax free because of the way the payments are structured), what a great deal
Jetstar Asia, however, is using an increasing number of Chinese nationals for their cabin crew and I have NO IDEA what they are saying.
Jetstar Asia also pays considerably less than SQ, and SQ also have this unspoken rule - anybody who has worked in an LCC as cabin crew would generally not be allowed into SQ to work as cabin crew. So what's the quality of people they're getting? Well not great, if they can't get any more Singaporeans to join them at what they're paying.
SQ also does not pay cabin crew according to nationality. Everyone gets the same pay whether they are Singaporeans, Malaysians, Koreans, Japanese or Indonesians. How damaging it is for people working the same job and with each other to be getting different pay rates?
Back to the topic, how such articles get published in respectable newspapers is beyond me.