Daily Lesson from Life 17 July 2008

"Thu, Jul 17, 2008 Reuters Hong Kong airport voted No. 1 for 7th year

CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA - HONG Kong International Airport was voted the world's best for a seventh year, after a survey of 8.2 million passengers.

Singapore's Changi Airport was at No. 2, with Asian airports dominating the top positions on the list.

The annual survey was conducted by Skytrax, a UK-based consultancy, and judges airports on more than 40 categories. It ranked them after collecting 8.2 million questionnaires completed by passengers over a 10-month period, from last year to this year.

The passengers judged 190 airports on factors like shopping, dining, staff courtesy, baggage delivery and waiting times at security.

Hong Kong, with its reputation for efficiency and comfort, has held the top position seven times. Only once, in 2006, was it displaced by Singapore's Changi Airport."


This is a surprise to me as I always thought the Singapore Changi Airport is the best in the world, bar none! I did not realized that it was only No. 2 for the last 7 years except in 2006!

It is hard to argue against 8.2m passengers over a 10-month period as the sample size is really big! Much bigger than anything I have come across in my corporate life and in my study on market research and sampling technique!

I wonder what made that difference? How is that Singapore could not beat it? Some readers referred to this state of affair as complacency of Singaporeans who run Changi Airport as the word 'complacency' was thrown around by senior government officials recently as a string of mis-steps and embarrassing lapses by the country's internal security forces and the custom.

The lessons for me are:

1. there are things that Singapore is not world No. 1. We admit to it. The key is: how do work to be No. 1?;

2. while we expand our airport, we have better hardware, supposedly. Our leaders also praised the Terminal 3 as the best in the world. Well, self-praise is no praise. We cannot argue with 8.2m passengers! Singapore must guide against complacency. We must not fall in love with ourselves;

3. when we are not in love with ourselves, we can begin to work hard and smart to regain the No. 1 position. And when we do, it is because we are doing the right things consistently and not because we only work on the areas that we need to beat Hong Kong airport to be No. 1. The competition has to be ourselves.

Personally, I like Changi Airport Terminal 2. Maybe I am a bit old fashion as I don't like the 'overly slick look' of Terminal 3. I don't really dig the green technologies thing. I don't really believe it. But then, I need to do some research on it!