No need for cabin crew

Seriously do you think SIA wanna employ more cabin crew? According to reports, SIA said in a statement on Wednesday that it would reduce the number of flights between Singapore and several cities in Asia including Penang, Ho Chi Minh City, Seoul, Osaka, Bangalore and Chennai. It will stop flights to Amritsar in India.

But SIA has increased services to the Middle East, with flights to Istanbul, via Dubai, raised from four to six. SIA will also fly to Riyadh soon.

These changes come two weeks after the carrier reported that it had been hit by its first fall in passenger numbers in three years.

The airline's passenger numbers in raw terms fell 1.6 per cent to 1.51 million in September from a year ago.

The passenger load factor also declined 4.1 per cent to 76.9 per cent last month.

( source : http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory)_296430.html

So you cabin crew wannabe and Luke Tan can take a loooong break hahaha.

Growing old is part and parcel of life. It’s one of those inevitable things that you just have to deal with. Graying hair, wrinkles, aching limbs, children moving out of the house, retirement,fewer friends,no colleagues… There’s a lot of things that go along with getting old.There is this physiological changes like slowness in whatever you do, can't walk in a straight line,eye-sight failing,mood swings and the lot.But you don’t have to face it like doomsday. Just like anything else, you can face it with grace.
Here are some tips on how to age gracefully.
Let the fact sink in,accept reality.
No matter what you do, you’ll get old. You’ll get wrinkles and gray hair (or, for men, hairlines recede). You can always get your hair dyed or get Botox treatments, but you can’t deny that your age when push comes to shove. Just look at your drivers license,CPF withdraw long passed and accept that many decades have passed since mommy brought you into the world.
Keep a healthy routine by exercising and keeping yourself occupied
Love life. If you have engaged in some bad habits when you were younger, give them up now. There’s no such thing as too late when breaking bad habits. Exercise and eat right
.
Don’t worry
Worrying and stress will only make you age a lot faster. So take it easy. Breathe. Take a moment to appreciate the smell of your morning coffee.
Control your emotions and temper.
Physically, you may experience some changes that can make you lose your temper quite easily. But you must learn not to give in to anger or to any extreme emotion. You don’t want the neighborhood kids to call you Mr. or Mrs. Grouch when you get older right?
Be friendly and smile freely (like you are attending an SIA cabin crew interview hahaha)
Interacting with people also helps improve your mood and outlook. So don’t forget to always bring out a smile. Have a social life. Living your life as a hermit isn’t a good thing.
Widen your interests
One of things you’d have to contend with when growing old is boredom. For one, there can be some physical limitations to your activities. So you may want to be filling your bookshelves with books on different things. Attend lectures or participate in volunteer activities. Keep a garden perhaps. Take up blogging like me and make some money from the ads.Keeping yourself busy helps in keeping the mind and body sharp.
Lastly,don't think too much about death because Mr. Death will come knocking one of these days and be courageous enough to welcome him.

How and why did the financial crisis comes about?

No thanks to the Arabs and OPEC members who greedily pushed the prices of oil up almost US$150 per barrel recently. The speculators jumped on the bandwagon and exploited the position and made tons of money for themselves.
The $147 per barrel of oil in return made transportation more expensive.Coupled with the shortages of food commodities like rice,wheat etc due to climatic changes and global warming increased the cost of living and hardship of billions of poor people the world over.
People lost their jobs and had to spend more are among some of the causes of the financial meltdown.
The Americans who borrowed heavily to buy houses and other goods also had to service the high interest rates on their loans and credit cards. Almost everyone in America could borrow as much as they wanted to without the necessary collateral. So when they lost their jobs they could not service their loans and cc and the banks seized their properties and auctioned them. Can you imagine how many millions homes were up for auction? The prices of properties then plummeted and the banks suddenly found themselves poorer,unable to pay their back depositors their money. Then the bubble burst and the dominoes effect took place.
Almost every sector of economy and countries are now feeling the pinch.
Now the greedy Arabs and OPEC members are also finding their earnings eroded due to the plunging oil demand.The price of oil now stands at about $67 per barrel. The covetous commodity traders are also suffering because there are now lesser demand for their products.
Who then benefited from the financial meltdown? My guess is the Wall Street Jews ,CEOs and executives of big American companies and I won't be surprise Israel too.
Billions of dollars are being secretly sent to Israel to help equip her with weapons necessary to STOP Iran from developing the nuclear bombs.
Iran will NEVER be able to achieve its ambition of possessing nuclear weapons!!!

SIA profit down for sure.

For sure SIA pax load would be affected badly by the global financial meltdown. I would not be surprised the profits would be halved judging by the battered share price of $10.56 down from $15.40 just 3 weeks ago.

The cabin crew wannabes would be disappointed because SIA would have to slow down its recruitment or maybe not recruit at all. The picture is bleak for the travel industries and the extreme would be the retrenchment of staff and crew.

SIA management is good at cutting cost during the good times and even better when it comes to a situation like the current one.

Air crafts aplenty but where are the passengers? The coming school holiday period would be a test for SIA. We shall wait and see but it's better to "fasten your seat belts" and brace for the "crash".....but this time round no more cces to get rid off,hahaha. Perhaps the deadwood managers,vps,svps and highly paid executives be asked to go.

Questions SIA ask at cabin crew interview

Please note that these materials are copyrighted and you may be sued if reproduced without Luke's permission.

Here we go...da da da.....

Why do you want to be a cabin crew with Singapore Airlines ?
What qualities do you possess that would make you an ideal stewardess?
Tell us about your hobbies?
If you are selected how would you contribute to make SIA inflight service better?
Tell us about your current or your previous job?
Why do you want to leave your present job to be a stewardess?
Which terminals at Changi Airport does SIA uses?
Name 3 cities SIA flies to?
What is an "offline" station?
What is an "online" station?
What is the 3 letter airline code for Singapore?
Who was the designer of the SIA stewardess uniform?
Name one type of aircraft SIA flies?
Why the interest in wanting to be an SIA stewardess?
Could you please tell us a little about your family?
What are your weaknesses and strengths?
How do you overcome your weaknesses?
How determine are you in wanting to be an SIA stewardess?
If you are a stewardess on a flight,what actions would you take if a passenger faints?
What would you have done if you spilled drinks onto a passenger?
Describe in 3 words what type of person you are?
What do your friends think of you?
What do you usually do in your spare time?
What would you do if someone disagree with you?
How well do you work under pressure?
What types of friends do you have?
What do you think of SIA inflight service?
What was the most impressive service you have ever experienced?
What would you do if you receive bad service?
How quick are you able to leave your present job if SIA wants to employ you?
Why do you think teamwork is important?
What do you dislike most in your current job?
What do you enjoy most in your present job?
How many times have you applied for this post as a cabin crew with SIA?
Why do you think you were unsuccessful in your previous application?
Why do you think good grooming is important for a cabin crew?
Why must a cabin crew smiles a lot?
Name 3 things a passenger expects from a cabin crew ?
What types of passenger do you like to serve?
How do you anticipate a passenger's needs?
What were your thoughts when coming for this interview?
How well prepared are you for this interview?
What would be the first thing you would do if you are told you have been successful at today's interview?
What types of articles in the newspaper that are of interest to you?
What did you do on the day before this interview?
What types of people would SIA want as cabin crew?
On your flight what actions would you take if a passenger tells you he has a headache?
What sorts of books do you read?
What was the happiest event you had in the last 12 months?
What were your saddest moments?
Best of luck to all cabin crew wannabes.

Luke's blog is here

My clone is at work.

I stumbled across this forum where sometime tried impersonating me (as bohtong) and copied my posts in the forum. The members thought it was me and started to critise me. Check this out and give me your comments please 

http://www.sgclub.com/singapore/singapore_airlines_sia_63151.html

What can I do ah?

Fear of flying/plane crash.

Many have asked me whether I was afraid of flying. After 35 years with the airlines,ironically my answer is yes I am afraid of flying. Then the next question was how did you manage to survive after all these years? Frankly I don't have the answer. Perhaps I could carry on flying for so long was because I did not want to work in the office. I loved the life style of a crew,living in posh hotels and having breaks at different cities around the world. So there wasn't much of a choice.
Each time there was a severe turbulence,my balls would shrink,thinking the plane was going to crash. But honestly speaking our modern aircrafts could withstand the severest of storms and turbulence in the sky. They would not break into two or into pieces,at least not with SIA aircrafts whose average age is 5 years. So that was quite reassuring.
Our pilots (SIA) are extremely well trained and SIA has one of highest standards of flight training in the world. The pilots are very focus on their job. Must admit they are pretty efficient but not much can be said of their attitude towards cabin crew (except the busty sexy SIA gals). Well who cares as long as they don't crash the planes right?
A couple of days back a Qantas flight from S'pore to Perth dived several hundred feet due to a computer glitch. But no one died although 40 over people were injured. Still the plane did not break up in mid air.
The chances of a plane crash is something like 1 in 10 million. The odds are in our favour and that perhaps also kept me going and flying until my retirement. So if you were to die in a plane crash,it is like you have struck the Toto first prize or the S'pore Sweep.

"A Happier Choice Marriage"

My Next Talk On "A Happier Choice Marriage"
My talk today on "A Happier Choice Marriage" at Suntec City was very well attended. The conference room in Wangz Business Centre was filled to capacity of over 50 people. Those of you who missed out on the talk can come to attend my next talk to be held on 6 December. As a service to the community, I am charging only $10 per person for the 2 hour talk. The details are below:

Date of Talk: 6 December 2008 (Saturday)

Time of Talk : 3 pm to 5 pm

Fee : $10 per participant

Venue : Sengkang Community Club. ( 5 minutes walk from Sengkang MRT Station and Bus Interchange )

Please call me early at 98336663 to register. Places are limited.

You may also register at:

http://www.ourcabincrew.com/

SIA shares

Still holding on to the 10,000 SIA shares that I've bought a few days back. Average I've paid was S$12.50 a piece and today it went up to as high as $13.60 before closing at $13.24,up 58 cents today.
If I've sold all at S13.50 today (almost did)I would have made a profit of $4,000 but I didn't. My target price to sell would be around $14 to $14.50. Call me greedy if you want to but this is a rare opportunity to make from this counter.

SIA shares are sure bet

Yesterday I was watching a news article on the financial turmoil on TV and was struck by something an analyst said. He reaffirmed that one of the best stocks to buy now is the SIA shares. His main reason was that SIA is cash rich and is not like any other airlines in the world which operate on borrowed money form banks.

Some years ago, I remember the then CEO of SIA said that he was relieved to get rid of the huge reserves of cash by buying 49% stake in Virgin Atlantic. The buying spree cost US$1 billion. He was delighted not so much because of the purchase but to rid the vast sum of cash SIA was holding so that he did not have to answer the shareholders' persistent query of what to do with the cash.

So from the above you may conclude that SIA is worth buying at current price of S$12,down from $15.60 a week ago. Go for it man cos boh tong is seldom wrong when comes to SIA shares ( BT bgt 10,000 at average of $12.50)...sure win one la,maybe in 3 to 4 weeks time it would go up to $14 per piece.....and then unload.

The story of a guy who was a ......

We met when I "hired" his taxi. He was a small built man of about 5' 2". His mannerism was first class and English was good. He spoke Mandarin with ease.
The name was Rony and he was in his fifties. Always polite,he liked to wear long sleeve shirts with them rolled up to his elbow.
We met quite often as I frequently used his "taxi" service. At a few kopi sessions, he told me about his past,a past that was filled with exciting stories which I am going to relate here....perhaps later.

First batch of Japanese stewardesses

It was in the late 1960's, MSA ( M'sia S'pore Airline),the predeccesor of SIA recruited its first batch of Japanese stewardesses. These JFss were to fly the SIN/HKG/TPE/TYO v.v. route.
I can still remember our bosses warning us to "hands-off" the JFss because they came from "good families". It was as though we were from some F/U families.
During the first few months of having the JFss over in SIN (they were based here), 2 out of 3 of our bosses were screwing some of the JFss.
What the fish was that?
In fact, one of the bosses were asked to leave not because he screwed the JFss but over something else.
In no time,the cockpit crew and the senior cabin crew were bedding the Japanese gals. We, being junior flight stewards had to adopt a "hands-off" policy....but.....hehehe

Was sodomised and worse......

One senior steward who had a couple of drinks with a Moari guy in Auckland was in the end sodomoised by the latter.
You don't believe this but after his ass was torn and traumatised he was almost sacked by his empoyer. He was deemed to have brought disrepute and shame to his company. Moreover,he was told he broke the company's rule of having his Moari "friend" spent the night in his hotel room.
Mind you that steward was a "straight" guy and not a gay or something.