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Nine million people fly into airports across the globe every day and every year the crowds are getting bigger. By 2030 passenger numbers will double. Air travel is a growth industry but one with as many stories of failure as stories of success. So how do you get to the top and how do you compete with the new players. If you're not established like Singapore Airlines I am Haslinda Amin at Singapore's Changi Airport home to the country's national carrier Singapore Airlines. It has a reputation for being a leader for so long. It was one of top ranked global carriers in service and innovation but others are catching up and they're doing better. Go to took over as CEO in 2011 with profit at a record low. Things have improved but the company has had to be bold. We'll hear his plan for growth and his view for the wider industry during the next half hour. But first the major challenges he's faced since becoming CEO I think some if you look into the industry some of the challenges could be transient. For example economical arc it goes down so that those challenges you you have to address in a more dynamic manner meaning that you could be flexible and nimble in the way you addressed them. But more important to us are the structural changes changes in the market is somewhat structural in nature somewhat fundamental. And those are the ones that we pay a lot more attention and that those we address using the true the four strategies that we discussed earlier which is of course to continue to push the boundary on what we have traditionally done best in products and services and in network the multi hub strategy the portfolio strategy as well as trying to push on getting new revenue stream. So those are the key ones. For years though Singapore Airlines set the benchmark. You were known for the premium service premium product but over the years your rivals have either caught up or even surpassed some say . Singapore Airlines has lost its first mover advantage. Even competitive edge your view. Well I certainly disagree with that . If you look at what we have done over the last few years not only have we actually went out and actually improved what is already the leading product for first business class and even economy class both internal seats and determined systems but we actually went to retrofit all all the existing fleets of triple 7 today with a new seats. And as we speak we are under we are undertaking a very major project to design the ground up seats for the reintroduction of the new HVAD in 2017 and that that practical exercises. I believe something that we we can. He's well worth waiting for. But isn't it true that you've had to rethink some of your earlier decisions for a very long time . The carrier was adamant about not going into the budget airline space. Also in the premium economy space but has had to turn back and decide otherwise and now catching up to I think one of the key challenges for any company is really to do things very differently from what traditionally the company is doing. And in the case of Singapore Airlines we've been doing we've been in the food service sector. We're well known for our service. And to actually move from that into other space is even more challenging because we have been so successful in doing so. So in that sense you're right to say that those challenges in moving into the LCD segment so that we can diversify our traffic base moving out of Singapore to have joint ventures in Thailand as well as in India to diversify away from just having the constraints of the geographical position and also moving into other business streams including the setting of ATC the Airbus Asia Training Centre which is again a diversification of the type of revenue you can get beyond just collecting ticket revenue so all of these are key changes that is quite significant from what we used to do. And I have to say that the credit has to go to my team who is able to be open minded about such changes and in fact as you can see the foundation of of all of these changes are beginning to take shape. So fair to say that you don't see yourself as having to play catch up. No actually in some sense if you look around the world how many airlines do you find that would have undertaken all these changes. I think very few if any your premium economy class . Will that be a game changer for you Where will demand come from why are you confident this is the right time. I think we have over the years actually review that decision every single year and we make that decision very deliberate menu. We see that there is a market out there and our customers are telling us that and therefore we introduced the premium economy. But when we do introduce the product we make sure that we're right up there in the leading position. And I would say that our premium economy if you have seen it if you have not it to do so certainly it's commendable that Singapore Airlines has been profitable for all the years that it's been in business more than 40 years. But if you take a look at the last 10 years it's been on the decline in fact especially so in the last four or five years why is that so. That is why I was mentioning there was this fundamental structural changes in the industry now that people like Cathy has managed to double profit. I think you have to look at the con in the context of the region which is things in Southeast Asia. And if you look at Southeast Asia all the economies in Southeast Asia are fairly open in terms of air services agreement especially Singapore. So that encourages competition which is fine with us. We are not we have no issue with competition there. Also you also see that in Southeast Asia especially there is a proliferation of the FTSE operations which is not quite at a pace that you see in North Asia. No you just have to see how many FTSE are there operating in this part of the world. So the two fundamental changes I mentioned which is the FCC proliferation as well as the massive capacity injection by the Gulf carriers and those are especially been felt in this part of world. So having said that are the glory days of double digit profit margins over. I don't think so. I think what we have done in positioning the company for the future is precisely to ensure that the company have a good growth story going forward. Look at this star would you set up in India. India is obviously a huge market. It's a fairly untapped at this point time. It's going to have a huge middle class as well. So if you start being based in India would be able to tap into those traffic and allow that traffic to grow . And as I say as a group will also benefit from that group. So how soon do you expect for start your venture in India to start paying off and fit into your overall as a network. I think in some sense our forward pack for this particular case of the star it would in part depend on when we start I'll be over we'll be allowed to operate international and we'll hope for that that the Indian government is looking favorably into shortening that requirement. But as it stands now I'd five yes. But I think we are. We are hopeful that you actually will be significantly shorten from the from the five years. And really if you look at those investments that we have whether it is in setting up new ventures invest all in a form of hysteria star in India or in Thailand in the form of not so good or our investment into Virgin Australia and all these to all these places where huge connectivity in Singapore to all these places have substantial network and that actually allow the synergy to take place and that will actually help the group to grow as coming up why did it take Singapore Airlines 20 years to break into the Indian market. And was it worth the wait. So Mr. Go . Here we are in a very exciting place. I know a lot of people want to be in this position and maybe others plus low cost options questions. And how go. Plans to take on his biggest rivals the Indian aviation market is a notoriously challenging territory due to its regulations high taxes and intense competition. Airlines there have lost more than 10 billion dollars over the past six years. But in 2013 Singapore Airlines surprised a lot of people by partnering Tata Sons to launch a new carrier. Is Tara hoping to cash in on the growth potential of the second most populous country on the planet and why does it make sense when you take a look at the market. Most of the airlines are losing money. In fact only two big airlines made money in the last year. Surely you don't want to be in a market where you run the risk of losses. So when we went to India we went in with our eyes. But Houston isn't is a very challenging market. We can see that and we have long experience in their experience in operating in India. We have operated in India for four years and we operate at too many points in India. However I think if you look at it 20 years to get in and it's not even a sure market where you can make my money now I think I think depends on perspective you're taking. If you look at India and the potential of India's travel I don't think anybody could deny that this is a huge market. They have great potential with the growing middle class and affluence in India. The question is can we make it work and is not going to be easy. It's not going to be a signal. It's not going to be a walk in the park . However we believe that the huge potential is there. We want to have an early presence. I think we've got the right partner . The best partner we could find in India. I believe that together and especially when if a 20 rules after all this is to begin to relax we'll see that we'll be able to tap a lot more than what we currently could from Singapore. And this is as I say giving us a new engine of growth going forward beyond what we could possibly do just based in Singapore. Are you at all apprehensive when you take a look at numbers. Numbers don't lie and the estimate out there is that Indian carriers will lose a combined one point four billion dollars in the coming fiscal year. Huge amount I think like I say you know when we're going to India we know what market we're going into and we know that the the going will be tough. But like I say also that we are prepared for that and we we've got the best team out there we've got the best putting it out there. We believe that we can make it work. We have to work hard on it and when it does work I think this will be an entity that will be huge for the Singapore Airline group. Well there's a lot resting on the star event in India. There's plenty of untapped opportunities in the other Asian powerhouse China. Chinese travel has grown exponentially over the past decade especially in this region. The number of Chinese travellers to North and Southeast Asia grew three point eight million over the past two years. A 19 percent increase from 2013 back in 2008. Singapore Airlines tried but failed to buy a stake in China Eastern Airlines limiting its access to the world's second largest aviation market. That's prompting some analysts to say that perhaps its China strategy may be incomplete. Why would it be incomplete. On what basis does anyone say that the strategy is incomplete. We so many points in China between ourselves and still. If you include our subsidiaries table as ise good. If more than a dozen points . So we are one of the biggest operator from this hardware to China and we continue to be able to foot traffic both into and out of China to the rest of the network. So I think our China network you said you're pretty good now is true that we are still working on getting Chinese carrier to be a partner. And that's something that we continue work on of course with in style with Air China. And we are looking at how to improve enhance our partnership between the two companies. Well efforts to try to tie up the China Eastern seven years ago fell through . What would make sense you talked about well the continued effort to to look at ventures and joint ventures. What would make sense. Well I think we could be we continue to be open to potential new ventures if it makes sense for the company especially if it positioned the company for the future. So if there is an opportunity to look at some kind of a venture in China we'll we'll look at it. But surely you should be in a hurry because by 2030 for one in every five our traveler will be coming from or to China. I don't think that the Chinese traffic can only be tapped through a joint venture. If you look at how many can you name one airline who has a joint Shery Ahn China in the passenger side. There you go. So therefore really we are talking about how do you work with the some of the Chinese carriers to enhance maybe connectivity into the domestic points in China and also feeding out of China. And as I mentioned we are continuing to work that out with with our partners is Thailand. How much of a threat is Cafe in the China market . It's it's it's able to grow its profit about 50 times 50 percent already precisely because it is at the doorstep of China. OK . I don't I don't want to comment on other Kailey Leinz I think you could pose that question to Kathy. Scoot is capping the new secondary markets in China. How successful has it been . Actually I should say that is good has been successful. And in fact not just China is good and has also been increasing its presence in Australia. What needs to be done for school is to improve connectivity which school and Tiger. I've been bilateral happy with the progress of schools and with the deliveries and the replacement of the older aircraft delivery of the 787 and the replacement of the Triple 7. I think this year will be a particularly important year for good. I want to touch on the US market now. You've talked about how as I is at a disadvantage because it's unable to fly directly to the US and you're in talks with Airbus as well as Boeing for possibly a new model that would enable you to do that. Where are you in these talks and how optimistic are you. So maybe I'll just get back to to supplement what you say about our inability to reach to us . The main reason as you alluded to is that this lack of available intermediate points and that is largely because the country concerned are not really giving us the right to operate what we call fee freedom from those points for us. And currently there isn't really available a commercially available aircraft that could fly nonstop. We used to fly to a three four five but that is just not fuel efficient enough for engine auto technology. So indeed we have been talking to the OEMs of Airbus as well as Boeing to try to get them to have an aircraft based on the new technology to be able to operate non-stop from Singapore into the U.S. when the discussion is still ongoing so how did you when you committed any timeframe any feasible timeframe to expect that new model. What we of course want it as soon as possible. The manufacturers are of course telling us to aid all unique new technology. You need some time. So I can't give you a country until you give me an indication Singapore Airlines will need every bit of advantage to rise above its competitors. Middle Eastern carriers in particular have been aggressively making their presence felt over the last few years. Qatar Airways beat Singapore Airlines to upgrade the fast a 350 service to Singapore in May. Why does Singapore Airlines doing to compete. I think the Gulf carriers have been expanding rapidly. The position been pretty aggressive they've been pretty aggressive and they've been affecting you know most of the players who is on that route and not just as my APC and the Gulf carriers in some sense if you look at it the geographical position is ideal for those Gulf operations that can serve many points in Europe within the sweet spot of six or seven hours of flight time. So we will recognize that. However we have our own advantage being based in Singapore which is again excess and proximity to Southeast Asia as well as Southwest Pacific. That's where we can actually have these combination of services to ensure that anybody who wish to come to Southeast Asia also a specific will see Singapore as the ideal getaway. You seem to have a comprehensive strategy in place for Singapore Airlines for the longer term but when you take a look at the share price investors don't seem to be buying into that story as ise stocks down 30 percent in the last five years four and a half of which you were CEO compared to the likes of Cathay Pacific. Up 17 percent the SGI up 17 percent in that period. What have you got to say to your shareholders to your investors to the investment community. Well I would assure them that they should see all this growth coming in in the next few years and they should start to invest more into the shares undervalued. I would certainly think so yes please . You know you should encourage everybody to invest more. It's a good time up next the journey to the top. How a decision go made as a student changed his career with Singapore Airlines Singapore Airlines has been profitable since the day it started 43 years ago. But profits have been slipping and many are asking if the days of double digit growth can retire go Jin Pong as the man who is supposed to make it happen. Yet he never envisage running the airline when he first started. He joined in 1990 after graduating from M.I.T. with three degrees and a master's in electrical engineering and computer science and his passion for research almost took him on a very different path . You were almost not in the race to be the CEO of Singapore Airlines you were in artificial intelligence an area which you were always interested in. Yes. And in fact you were thinking of pursuing a page in it. I'll tell you the story behind that. So that was really way back now. No. What twenty years. It's been a long time. That was when I was a student in the U.S. and as a scholar and as a scholar. Yes I studied at M.I.T. and at that point in time everything seemed so fascinating and the idea of doing research and contributing to knowledge creation was particularly fascinating to me. And so indeed I was really contemplating on doing PHC then in artificial intelligence had I really have done so. I know this could be a very different career indeed. That's that's the that's the truth . But of course I was sponsored by I say to do the study. So they said come back. This is a bad. Yes I know. I do know the duty to come back and serve the airline. And it was a satisfying fascinating career. And I have no regrets. Five years from now what would you like to achieve. People talk about the future plans of this national carrier. Your own perspective on it . You see all these key shows you putting in place so all these strategies are meant to firstly make sure that doesn't remain the top choice and top of mind when it comes to services and product as well as network connectivity hands those work that we've been doing to expand all three. And of course we then have additional platform to grow. One is this new business segment which is ti FTSE segment which I've never had before . The other is the geographical segment a new geographical point of growth to tap growth in also other geography. And thirdly are the revenue sources beyond just ticket revenue. So you have also I kept going that ATC but we're working on more of it. We could announce when the time is here. But the idea is that you'll find that the as a group would have a much wider revenue base and for growth in the future. Do you see ASI becoming the number one carrier again. Of course. I don't. I think we are really a number of value by a lot of measures. But yes I think going forward with all these new revenue sources and so forth will be. We'll be having a good growth story going forward . Mexico. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Pleasure . Thank you for having us .