Case Title	Singapore Airlines: Reacting to the Asian Crisis
Case Author(s)	Kulwant Singh Nitin Pangarkar Lim Gaik Eng
University	National University of Singapore
Abstract	When several major airlines in the Asia-Pacific region were reeling from the impact created by the economic crisis in July 1998, Singapore Airlines' (SIA) response was to announce in September 1998 its biggest launch of brand new products and services to be introduced in all three classes on its Boeing 747, Airbus A340 and Boeing 777 airplanes. SIA had earlier announced a 2.5% reduction in capacity for flights serving the Southeast Asian region and increased flights to the US, Europe and Australia. It had also offered Hello Kitty dolls (a Japanese character dressed in the well-known attire of an SIA stewardess) to travelers with the purchase of tickets, which proved quite popular. In another move to cushion the effects of the economic depression, SIA's top twenty executives and its group managers volunteered to forego annual salary increments for the fiscal year of 1998-1999. The company also deferred the delivery of eleven aircraft over the following two years. The case considers the strategies adopted by SIA in overcoming the worst economic crisis in history and questions whether the initiatives implemented were extremely risky or were cleverly devised to take advantage of SIA's strengths.
Available In	Business Strategy in Asia: A Casebook
Publisher	Thomson Learning
Publisher Case No.
Distributor(s)	Thomson Learning National University of Singapore
Pub/Rev Date	2001
ISBN	981-240-038-9
Case Length	4 pgs
Teaching Note	No
Pub TN Ref No.
Pages (TN)
Issues	Strategy
Organisation(s)	Singapore Airlines (SIA)
Countries	Singapore
Industry	Airlines & Aviation
Period Covered	1997-1999
Level	Undergraduate/Postgraduate
Links of Interest	Singapore Airlines' website
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