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SINGAPORE: The ongoing financial turmoil is unlikely to affect the plans of Singapore's new aviation regulator.
Chairman-designate of the restructured Civil Aviation Authority Lee Hsien Yang is still focused on maintaining Singapore's status as an aviation hub.
Mr Lee said, "Air traffic has grown steadily over the years. Airline as an industry has always done very badly, but not withstanding that, there are enough people who seem prepared to pour capital into the industry to start new airlines when some go bust.
"There's clearly demand and our goal has been and will continue to be... to make Singapore and Changi a major aviation hub. It's not uncontested. There are other people with similar aspirations.
"(Thus) we need to execute well on those ambitions for people to find it worthwhile to come here. There are a lot of positive externalities on being successful in making ourselves a large aviation hub."
It was announced on Tuesday that Changi Airport would be corporatised in July 2009.
Mr Lee said the restructured Civil Aviation Authority will build flexibility into its regulatory system to allow Changi Airport to explore opportunities abroad, and to be privatised in the future.
He added that there is a lot of work to be done leading up to July 2009, and one of the key tasks is to sort out staff deployment between the two entities, fitting people into the organisational structure and right jobs.
The regulator also hopes to bring to its board people with diverse skills, regardless of their nationalities. It will also monitor service standards after Changi Airport is corporatised.
Mr Lee said, "When you push economic return very hard, then potentially you could say, 'do I have to have the first bag on the carousel within 15 minutes? Why don't we push it 10 minutes, then we can have less staff, we can cut cost.' We think it's probably appropriate to have some service standard measures which operators will have to meet up to."
The regulator will look at customer satisfaction and what has been done in other airports as service benchmarks.
Mr Lee added that penalties will have to be levied for service failures, but things like fines should be reserved for more serious incidents.
He stressed that the authority has other important functions other than its regulatory role. They include master planning of the aviation sector, air traffic provisions, management of airspace and cargo operations.
As to how Singapore aims to protect its air hub status when the going gets tough, Mr Lee said consistency is key.
He said, "Other than SQ, many of the airlines that operate through here have a choice. They could operate out of other airports in the region. The reason they come here, although we are more expensive than some of the alternatives, is because we have compensating factors.
"On the short term, nobody is going to go off just because you raise your charges... but if you don't demonstrate some consistency of behaviours over time, then people will look at you differently. So Changi has to be conscious of retaining the airlines and engaging the passengers."
- CNA/yt
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