Thursday, March 04, 2004
“IMPOUNDED BUSES NOT AIRASIA’S”
By KHUSHWANT SINGH
He [Mr Tony Fernandes] said: “A Singapore entrepreneur approached us some time ago and offered this service and when we asked, he said that all permits and insurance were in order and all necessary requirements fulfilled.”…
…According to the LTA, the two impounded buses were authorised only to carry tourists between Singapore and Malaysia and were not licensed by LTA to operate scheduled servies or ferry passengers between designated pick-up points.
Last December, LTA had turned down applications from Comfort Bus – a subsidiary of ComfortDelGro – and a Malaysian bus operator to ferry people between Singapore and Senai [whose airport AirAsia flights to KL take off from].
Mr Fernandes said: “Impounding buses Is an over-reaction. It’s a sad day for entrepreneurship.
“Singapore must learn how to deal with entrepreneurs and ideas need to be fostered.”
But irrepressible as ever, he added: “This is just a glitch and entrepreneurs are fighters who will bounce back.”…
* * *
SCREW the authorities. Very clearly they don’t want Changi Airport to loose out, so they scheme all sorts of ways to make sure that passengers are prevented from flying out of the country from their neighbouring country.
Sure, countries have national interests in mind, but protectionist policies would have gone too far in this scenario:
Tony Fernandes was fine with taking his flights from Singapore. He requested the authorities to extend the runway at the seldom-used Seletar airport to accommodate his Boeing 737 planes. The authorities refused and asked him to use Changi Airport. Fernandes didn’t want to use Changi Airport because overheads were high and in return he would have to make passengers pay more. So when the doors were shut, Fernandes opted for the nearby Senai airport.
The clever authorities took a step further and prevented any bus company from providing a direct link from Singapore to Senai airport. Obviously the reason is very clear. Even the Comfort Bus, which belongs to the national bus company, was rejected. The authorities even rejected the Malaysian bus operator. It’s as good as the authorities saying to Fernandes, to put it in crude terms: “If you don’t want to do business with us, then fuck off.” Singapore is being the bully: they want companies to agree to their terms.
With such a situation going on, the entrepreneur who started the last bus service had to lie to Fernandes to get the service off the ground. Unfortunately his plan got busted. This shows how the authorities want to stop any convenient access from Singapore to Senai airport. To them, Senai is the snake pit that must clearly be avoided.
But passengers still know best. Despite the inconvenience, many are still braving the long journey and transfers to fly to KL from Senai, instead of Singapore. You loose, Singapore.
Look at a different picture:
The Pang brothers wanted to film some subway sequences for their new movie “The Eye 2”. The MTR (Hong Kong subway) rejected the request; Singapore “welcomed them with open arms” [quote from the article in TODAY]
Either the Singaporeans are bias shit, or that Raintree Pictures, one of the partners in the film project, was a subsidiary of local broadcaster MediaCorp Studios, and therefore SMRT said “okay” to BOOKING THE ENTIRE TRAIN. Even Shu Qi, the heroine, was allowed to be filmed on the Ang Mo Kio station platform.
When do you ever think the authorities would let you take an entire train and use it for your own purpose during service hours? ¶ 3/04/2004 11:44:00 am
By KHUSHWANT SINGH
He [Mr Tony Fernandes] said: “A Singapore entrepreneur approached us some time ago and offered this service and when we asked, he said that all permits and insurance were in order and all necessary requirements fulfilled.”…
…According to the LTA, the two impounded buses were authorised only to carry tourists between Singapore and Malaysia and were not licensed by LTA to operate scheduled servies or ferry passengers between designated pick-up points.
Last December, LTA had turned down applications from Comfort Bus – a subsidiary of ComfortDelGro – and a Malaysian bus operator to ferry people between Singapore and Senai [whose airport AirAsia flights to KL take off from].
Mr Fernandes said: “Impounding buses Is an over-reaction. It’s a sad day for entrepreneurship.
“Singapore must learn how to deal with entrepreneurs and ideas need to be fostered.”
But irrepressible as ever, he added: “This is just a glitch and entrepreneurs are fighters who will bounce back.”…
* * *
SCREW the authorities. Very clearly they don’t want Changi Airport to loose out, so they scheme all sorts of ways to make sure that passengers are prevented from flying out of the country from their neighbouring country.
Sure, countries have national interests in mind, but protectionist policies would have gone too far in this scenario:
Tony Fernandes was fine with taking his flights from Singapore. He requested the authorities to extend the runway at the seldom-used Seletar airport to accommodate his Boeing 737 planes. The authorities refused and asked him to use Changi Airport. Fernandes didn’t want to use Changi Airport because overheads were high and in return he would have to make passengers pay more. So when the doors were shut, Fernandes opted for the nearby Senai airport.
The clever authorities took a step further and prevented any bus company from providing a direct link from Singapore to Senai airport. Obviously the reason is very clear. Even the Comfort Bus, which belongs to the national bus company, was rejected. The authorities even rejected the Malaysian bus operator. It’s as good as the authorities saying to Fernandes, to put it in crude terms: “If you don’t want to do business with us, then fuck off.” Singapore is being the bully: they want companies to agree to their terms.
With such a situation going on, the entrepreneur who started the last bus service had to lie to Fernandes to get the service off the ground. Unfortunately his plan got busted. This shows how the authorities want to stop any convenient access from Singapore to Senai airport. To them, Senai is the snake pit that must clearly be avoided.
But passengers still know best. Despite the inconvenience, many are still braving the long journey and transfers to fly to KL from Senai, instead of Singapore. You loose, Singapore.
Look at a different picture:
The Pang brothers wanted to film some subway sequences for their new movie “The Eye 2”. The MTR (Hong Kong subway) rejected the request; Singapore “welcomed them with open arms” [quote from the article in TODAY]
Either the Singaporeans are bias shit, or that Raintree Pictures, one of the partners in the film project, was a subsidiary of local broadcaster MediaCorp Studios, and therefore SMRT said “okay” to BOOKING THE ENTIRE TRAIN. Even Shu Qi, the heroine, was allowed to be filmed on the Ang Mo Kio station platform.
When do you ever think the authorities would let you take an entire train and use it for your own purpose during service hours? ¶ 3/04/2004 11:44:00 am
