How is Singapore Airlines responding?
The premium economy market has gradually matured over the years, making it less of a niche play and a product regularly requested by corporate travel buyers. This hasn't changed, but the broader industry has become much better in this regard.
Gulf carrier competition will only intensify further as their networks and hubs continue to grow. Low cost airlines are growing but the full services carriers have not retreated. Both group and passenger revenues dropped despite an increase in RPKs and relatively flat load factors.
In the past, since SIA derived a good proportion of its revenues from the South-east Asian region, it benefited from the higher degree of regulation, which resulted in higher yields. But these are relatively minor as differentiating factors and most customers may not even notice that SIA is better in these respects, let alone provide the X factor to justify paying premium fares.
Passengers may claim this not only for airline operators from the EU, bit for any airline that flies in EU countries. In conclusion, he forecast clear skies with occasional rain and some thunderstorms.
It became the gold standard to which other airlines and air travellers aspired. It was able to deliver good-quality service and make a profit at the same time. SIA must find new inspiration to maintain its differentiation against rivals.
This increases the risks in an industry easily impacted by many factors beyond the airline's control. Due to these issues, the SIA call centres have been swamped and because customers are unable to get through, where do they go?