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Singapore Air
Singapore's supermodern Singapore Changi Airport, a
travel and
shipping hub, had connections to all parts of the world in
keeping
with Singapore's "open skies" policy. In 1988 forty-eight
scheduled
international airlines--twelve more than in 1983--linked
the
country to 101 cities in fifty-three countries. These
carriers
offered a total of 1,500 scheduled flights per week to and
from
Singapore; a total of 12.6 million passengers used the
airport in
1988--a 12.4 percent increase over the previous year and
the
highest passenger volume recorded in any one year since
the airport
opened in 1981. Nearly half of those passengers came from
or went
to other destinations in Southeast Asia. A second
passenger
terminal scheduled for completion in 1990 would increase
Changi's
passenger handling capability to 20 million annually. The
Civil
Aviation Authority of Singapore managed the facility,
which was
consistently rated by the travel industry as one of the
best
airports in the world.
Changi also was noted for its air cargo facilities. The
total
volume of air cargo surged to 511,541 tons in 1988, an
increase of
22.3 percent over the previous year and more than double
the volume
handled in 1983. Seletar Airport was used for charter and
training
flights. Additionally, Singapore was one of the most
comprehensive
airline maintenance and overhaul centers in the
Asia-Pacific
region, having more than fifty approved airline
organizations in
1987.
Singapore Airlines (SIA) emerged from its humble
beginnings in
1972 to become one of Asia's, if not the world's, leading
airlines
with an unparalleled reputation for service and
efficiency.
Following the division of Malaysia-Singapore Airlines, the
airline
owned jointly by Malaysia and Singapore between 1965 and
1972, SIA
inherited the company's limited international routes and
an aging
fleet of ten airplanes. By 1988 SIA operated with one of
the
youngest fleets in the airline industry--twenty-two Boeing
747s,
four Boeing 757s, six Airbus 310s, and twenty Boeing
747-400s on
order. SIA flew to fifty-seven cities in thirty-seven
countries
around the globe, carrying 5.6 million passengers in 1988
and
filling 74.8 percent of its seats. The airline ranked
fourteenth
worldwide in the number of passenger-kilometers and
twelfth in
terms of air freight-kilometers in 1987.
In economic terms, SIA's earnings accounted for 3.6
percent of
the 1987 GNP. The airline was one of the country's major
employers,
providing jobs for one out of every eighty-nine workers in
the
country in 1987. As part of the government's move toward
privatization, shares of its stock were sold to the public
in 1985,
leaving the government holding 63 percent of the shares,
foreign
investors 20 percent, and the public, including SIA
employees, 17
percent. Another public sale of stock in 1987 brought the
government-owned holdings down to 55 percent.
Data as of December 1989
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