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The Singapore government has pledged to support SIA and the Changi Airport Group (CAG) “as much as we can” through a “deep crisis”, as it mulls a safe and steady reopening of its borders. Speaking at a parliamentary sitting on Tuesday, transport minister Ong Ye Kung also made reviving Singapore’s air hub status, now badly battered by a collapse in travel demand, a national priority and a “critical endeavour”. He notes that SIA and CAG are “facing a deep crisis” amid the coronavirus outbreak, which has brought global air travel to a grinding halt. Changi Airport, for instance, is only at 1.5% its usual passenger volume, with only about 6% of the usual passenger flights in operation. It has also shut two passenger terminals since May, amid plunging passenger numbers. Ong told parliament that Changi only has direct connections to 49 points globally, a significant drop from the pre-pandemic period, when it had links to 160 cities around the world. “We were the 7th busiest airport in the world for international passenger traffic. Today, we have dropped to 58th place,” Ong adds. As for SIA, Ong notes that without the carrier’s recapitalisation exercise, which it first announced in March, “there would not be an SIA today”.<br/>

With the aviation sector battered by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is “not the time now” to be talking about imposing an environmental tax on Singapore Airlines, said Transport Minister Ong Ye Kung Tuesday. Doing so will worsen the situation for the national carrier, which is trying hard to preserve cash and generate revenue at the moment, he added, responding to a question from Workers’ Party (WP) Member of Parliament Jamus Lim on why the Government would not consider such a tax. Earlier in his ministerial statement which outlined the Government’s strategies to support the struggling aviation sector, Ong described SIA as “far from being out of the woods” despite a recent recapitalisation exercise. One of the ideas that the airline had to generate revenue was to launch flights to nowhere, he noted, although this was later scrapped. “Whichever way SIA had decided, MOT (Ministry of Transport) would always try our best to support our national carrier in times like this,” the minister said in his speech to the House. “What I will not contemplate is to impose on them an environment tax at this time, as Associate Professor Jamus Lim indicated in his question, because that will just worsen the crisis for SIA.” Seeking a clarification after Ong’s ministerial statement, Assoc Prof Lim said it is “entirely possible” that the tax will not have an immediate concern on SIA’s economic viability if it is able to pass on the cost to consumers for instance. The opposition MP also asked if more innovative ways can be considered so that environmental needs “need not be a casualty” to business considerations. “The simple answer is this, we are in a crisis,” Ong replied. “SIA, as I mentioned, is ferrying 1.5% of its passenger volume so it’s not about passing the cost to passengers – there are no passengers to pass (the tax) to now,” he added. <br/>