COVID-19 SPECIAL

SIA focused on recovery, not retrenchment: CEO

With Covid-19 wreaking havoc on global air travel, Singapore Airlines chief Goh Choon Phong talks to The Sunday Times in an exclusive interview about how the airline will weather these unprecedented times.

SIA's measures to control staff costs include pay cuts and no-pay leave. A new portal also keeps staff updated on job opportunities elsewhere.
SIA's measures to control staff costs include pay cuts and no-pay leave. A new portal also keeps staff updated on job opportunities elsewhere. ST PHOTO: KUA CHEE SIONG

Singapore Airlines (SIA) has no plans to cut jobs at the moment, said its chief executive, who stressed that the immediate focus is to manage costs and press on with various transformation initiatives.

Mr Goh Choon Phong said: "(Retrenchment) is not our focus at the moment, but it's something that, obviously, we will have to review."

The Covid-19 pandemic, which has brought the air travel sector to its knees, has forced some airlines to axe staff.

South-east Asia's largest budget carrier, AirAsia, is reportedly laying off more than 300 employees, while Qatar Airways has warned that it will need to cut headcount by nearly 20 per cent.

The focus for SIA, which recently formed a Restart Task Force with four working groups, is to mobilise all resources to look into customer concerns and issues, as well as how to put in place new measures to meet regulatory demands, Mr Goh said.

The airline is also keeping a close eye on costs after reporting its first annual net loss in 48 years.

Full-year net loss came in at $212 million for the 12 months to March 31, down from earnings of $683 million in the previous year.

Mr Goh said: "We are not going to let up on the various measures that we have for controlling costs, including staff costs.

"The pay cuts and (compulsory) no-pay leave will continue... We also have voluntary no-pay leave, and we have actually had a very significant take-up on it."

The Government's Jobs Support Scheme, which provides the aviation sector with wage support of up to 75 per cent for nine months, has also helped, said Mr Goh.

Alternative job opportunities are also being offered to SIA staff, with a newly created portal to update them on job openings elsewhere.

More than 1,000 SIA employees are also volunteering as safe distancing ambassadors and helping out in hospitals.

"So there are actually a lot of them deployed outside SIA, as it is, right now," said Mr Goh.

SIA is currently operating at just 6 per cent of its pre-Covid-19 capacity.

At the height of the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in 2003 - which was less devastating than the current pandemic - SIA retrenched several hundred staff, including pilots and cabin crew.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Sunday Times on June 07, 2020, with the headline SIA focused on recovery, not retrenchment: CEO. Subscribe