Wirraway
12th Mar 2004, 00:16
Fri "The Australian"
SIA says sky clear for competition
By Steve Creedy
March 12, 2004
SINGAPORE Airlines believes the time is right for the Singaporean and Australian Governments to resume discussions about opening up Pacific routes to more competition.
SIA's new regional vice-president for South-Pacific, Paul Tan, said he believed the recovery in the aviation sector was approaching the normalcy that Transport Minister John Anderson had said was necessary to pursue further liberalisation talks.
Mr Anderson said after the signing of an open skies agreement with Singapore last year that he would not enter talks about allowing Singapore to fly from Australia to the US until their was greater stability in the global aviation environment.
With most indicators now pointing up, Mr Tan said the time had come. "Things are better," he said.
"Qantas has made a profit, we have turned around our losses in the first quarter to show a profit.
"I think most airlines are reporting better loads, so its good indicators that things are going well."
SIA supports the tourism industry argument that high fares and load factors on Pacific routes are resulting in unmet demand.
Mr Tan noted that Singapore's traffic into Australia last calendar year grew by 12 per cent as overall Australian arrivals fell 2 per cent due to the SARS crisis and the war in Iraq.
He believed SIA could produce similar tourist growth in the trans-Pacific market.
Mr Tan said: "We have a pretty strong marketing outfit on the West Coast of the USA, in Los Angeles. We believe we can help bring in people to Australia."
Mr Tan said that SIA hoped for a breakthrough this year.
But a spokesman for Mr Anderson said the Government would require a record of stability over a period of time before it moved on the issue.
"We said we wanted more steadiness in the international aviation sector, and I don't think anybody really says that it's completely steady right now," he said.
"We're only just (past) SARS and bird flu and a number of airlines are still in a very tricky position.
"A decision on that was made basically yesterday and you can't keep looking at these things every few months, it's a medium- to longer-term issue rather than a short-term issue."
Even without the Pacific routes, SIA is poised to increase its services to Australia with additional capacity planned for Melbourne and Brisbane and a handful of additional seats on its three daily Sydney services.
It will add three extra weekly services to Melbourne next month to bring the airline's non-stop flights between Australia and Singapore to 70 a week.
Melbourne service is due to increase to 19 flights a week in September – boosting SIA's capacity to the Victorian capital by 29 per cent since April – with a view to eventually going triple daily.
Perth is likely to remain twice daily, while Adelaide gained a flight last year to get four flights a week.
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SIA says sky clear for competition
By Steve Creedy
March 12, 2004
SINGAPORE Airlines believes the time is right for the Singaporean and Australian Governments to resume discussions about opening up Pacific routes to more competition.
SIA's new regional vice-president for South-Pacific, Paul Tan, said he believed the recovery in the aviation sector was approaching the normalcy that Transport Minister John Anderson had said was necessary to pursue further liberalisation talks.
Mr Anderson said after the signing of an open skies agreement with Singapore last year that he would not enter talks about allowing Singapore to fly from Australia to the US until their was greater stability in the global aviation environment.
With most indicators now pointing up, Mr Tan said the time had come. "Things are better," he said.
"Qantas has made a profit, we have turned around our losses in the first quarter to show a profit.
"I think most airlines are reporting better loads, so its good indicators that things are going well."
SIA supports the tourism industry argument that high fares and load factors on Pacific routes are resulting in unmet demand.
Mr Tan noted that Singapore's traffic into Australia last calendar year grew by 12 per cent as overall Australian arrivals fell 2 per cent due to the SARS crisis and the war in Iraq.
He believed SIA could produce similar tourist growth in the trans-Pacific market.
Mr Tan said: "We have a pretty strong marketing outfit on the West Coast of the USA, in Los Angeles. We believe we can help bring in people to Australia."
Mr Tan said that SIA hoped for a breakthrough this year.
But a spokesman for Mr Anderson said the Government would require a record of stability over a period of time before it moved on the issue.
"We said we wanted more steadiness in the international aviation sector, and I don't think anybody really says that it's completely steady right now," he said.
"We're only just (past) SARS and bird flu and a number of airlines are still in a very tricky position.
"A decision on that was made basically yesterday and you can't keep looking at these things every few months, it's a medium- to longer-term issue rather than a short-term issue."
Even without the Pacific routes, SIA is poised to increase its services to Australia with additional capacity planned for Melbourne and Brisbane and a handful of additional seats on its three daily Sydney services.
It will add three extra weekly services to Melbourne next month to bring the airline's non-stop flights between Australia and Singapore to 70 a week.
Melbourne service is due to increase to 19 flights a week in September – boosting SIA's capacity to the Victorian capital by 29 per cent since April – with a view to eventually going triple daily.
Perth is likely to remain twice daily, while Adelaide gained a flight last year to get four flights a week.
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