Goh Choon Phong rises in interview about the recovery of SIA after the pandemic

Coming off an unprecedented period of the pandemic in which the company lost two hundred billion dollars, or nine years' worth of profit, CEO of SIA Goh Choon Phong talks about the way forward for the national carrier.

Goh has numbers on hand and gives good replies to questions, which is why we are nominating him for the Media Savvy Awards 2022.

Watch and read below for my assessment.

We launched the Media Savvy Awards in 2018 to recognise local business leaders for their communications skills, and to showcase authentic and credible home-grown communicators.

Supported by the Asia Pacific Association of Communications Directors and joining us this year – the Investor Relations Professionals Association Singapore and the Public Relations and Communications Association - we highlight shining examples for other local business leaders to follow, and to build a culture of excellence in communication, to maximise the potential of Asian companies in the Asian Century.

Nominations close end of October 2022 at https://www.mediasavvyawards.com/

Data

Goh started off with data to highlight the difficulties SIA was going through during the pandemic. He said that as of January of 2020, SIA was carrying about 3.4 billion people. By April that year when the pandemic hit the industry hard, the airline was carrying only 11,000 people.

Hypothetical Question

SIA needed cash to tide it through the pandemic. So it decided to raise money from its shareholders. It asked for a massive amount of S$15 billion.

Goh pre-empted the question someone might ask and addressed it: “One might ask why 15 billion dollars, it’s a huge amount of money to ask for – it was more than our market cap then”.

Bridging

When asked for further projections for the performance of the airline by the interviewer, Goh said, “we don’t give projections” and instead talks about how SIA has prepared itself so well during the pandemic that it can put in place capacity at short notice.

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