I have always admired Fred Smith of FedEx.

Yesterday, he addressed a town hall meeting in Los Angeles, on the economy's impact on industry, and offered three very sensible suggestions for governments to consider.

I an excerpting from the speech “Keeping America Competitive: the View from ‘Commerce Street’" by Frederick W. Smith, Chairman, President and CEO, FedEx Corporation.

The fact is that in this economic downturn, most people, especially politicians and the press, talk about Wall Street and Main Street, but few talk about what I call “Commerce Street,” the industrial economy in between…and the one with just as many victims as the other two sectors.

Let me shine a spotlight on how important such industries are to our American economy.

The industrial sector includes businesses that are usually rich in assets—big service companies, health care providers, warehousers, manufacturers, agriculture, mining and energy producers. This sector is a major driver of our economy. Industry may not be as sexy as finance, housing or retail, but it’s a critical component of GDP. Industrial job creation and loss parallel exactly the rise and fall of corporate spending in the U.S.

Even so, as more industrial businesses have slowed down or closed, the United States has begun to lose its edge in the global marketplace. How can we fund technological innovation if companies are strapped for cash? How can we fund alternative fuel research if chemists have lost their jobs?

So today I’d like to try to answer the question, “How can we make American companies more competitive in the global marketplace and increase their ability to offer American workers good jobs?

My answer? Three things:

• Accelerate the expensing of capital investment,
• Reduce our dependence on imported petroleum, and
• Champion free trade.

In summary, I believe that we can face down today’s challenges with that famous American ingenuity, determination and optimism that have kept us a world leader for so long.

The three topics I’ve discussed today require little in the way of direct government money. By stimulating the industrial sector to invest more in equipment and software; by reducing our dependence on imported oil; and by helping world markets remain open, we can begin to move the U.S. economy in the right direction. The only thing we really need is the political will to make these things happen. If we do, then we can transform “Commerce Street” into a more powerful force in California’s economy, and we can help straighten the crown America has worn for so long as the world’s economic leader.

I strongly recommend your reading the complete presentation, it will be time well worth spent.

Singapore Airlines is making further adjustments to its route network, primarily cutting back flights to various destinations in India, Thailand, Europe, and USA, while increasing capacities to the middle east.

The changes, will take place progressively from now and will apply for the rest of the Northern Winter schedule (i.e. till end-March 2009), and will most likely continue in to the Summer schedule.

India
Hyderabad-Singapore services SQ439 and SQ438 will be reduced from four to three times weekly, with the suspension of the Saturday service from 21 February. Service will operate on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.

New Delhi-Singapore services SQ405 and SQ406 will be reduced from a six times weekly service, to five times weekly service, from 10 March to 24 March 2009, as flights on Tuesdays during this period will be suspended.

Mumbai-Singapore services SQ421 and SQ422 will be progressively reduced from five to four times weekly services, starting 27 February 2009. Flights on Fridays will be suspended.

Thailand
Bangkok-Singapore services SQ972 and SQ975 will be suspended from 2 February until the end of the Northern Winter Schedule bringing Singapore Airlines capacity to 25 flights weekly.

USA
Newark-Singapore and Los Angeles-Singapore non-stop services performed by the Airbus A340-500; frequency will reduce by two flights to five weekly flights on each route. The Tuesday and Wednesday services, will be suspended.

Ironically, Thai Airways, who has been unable to find a buyer for its suspended A340-500 aircraft, is resuming Bangkok-USA non-stop services.

Europe
United Kingdom
London Heathrow-Singapore services SQ308 and SQ319 will be suspended on Mondays and Thursdays between 9 and 23 March 2009. Total frequency on the Singapore-London route will reduce from 21 to 19 flights per week.

Switzerland
Zurich-Singapore services SQ342 and SQ341 will be reduced from daily to five times weekly, from 9 March 2009. Total frequency on the Singapore-Zurich route will reduce from 14 to 12 flights per week.

Middle East
Kuwait and Abu Dhabi
Singapore Airlines will commence four times weekly services to Kuwait, via Abu Dhabi, from 15 March 2009, with the introduction of SQ458 and SQ457 on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Singapore Airlines will continue its existing three times weekly service to Abu Dhabi. With the addition of the Kuwait service, Abu Dhabi will become a daily service.

Egypt
Cairo-Singapore services SQ492 and SQ493 will increase from thrice weekly to four times a week from 12 March. The Cairo flights will operate via Dubai, thus increasing frequency between Singapore and Dubai to 16 per week.

In an incident, that will definitely not please either the airline, or the airframe manufacturer, the world's largest commercial airliner the Airbus A380 superjumbo, operated by Australian carrier Qantas was grounded in Fiji due to a computer glitch.

VH-OQB, the second aircraft in Qantas' A380 fleet, recently delivered, and which commenced operations just one week ago, was on a routine flight QF 12 from Los Angeles (LAX) to Sydney (SYD) having departed LAX December 26th. It was forced to divert and make an emergency landing at Nadi in Fiji, in the early hours of Sunday, December 28th, when a passenger fell ill on board.

The landing was reportedly smooth. In fact, Fiji had just reached an agreement that Nadi airport would be used in emergency situations by the A380, and the Fijian aviation authorities hailed the landing. Many Fijians rushed to the airport to see the behemoth.

It is then the problems began. As per the Sydney Morning Herald

The ill passenger was taken off the plane and the flight was expected to resume shortly afterwards. But the plane ended up staying on the tarmac for a further four hours after an indicator light in the cockpit came on and required examination by an engineer.

Qantas said the light did not indicate a serious safety issue.

The airline sought approval from the Civil Aviation Safety Authority to allow a Fiji-based A330 engineer to check the plane. However, before it could get approval, Qantas had to cancel the trip, because the flight crew would have breached their allowable working hours.

All passengers were accommodated in local hotels and a 747, sent to pick up the passengers, is expected to fly them to Sydney this morning.

The replacement Qantas Boeing 747-400 reached Sydney as flight QF 8012 with a delay of 25 hours.

Qantas has been having a spate of incidents recently, and I don't know if the bad luck of the airline is rubbing off on the new A380s.

30 December update.

Received a comment from a person claiming to part of the crew, who clarified that there was no glitch, but more of an issue of crew limits. Read the full comment below.

If true, I am indeed very happy.

In 2009, Delta Air Lines will add its first-ever daily nonstop service between Los Angeles and Sydney, Australia* effective July 1; three-times weekly service between Los Angeles and Sao Paulo, Brazil* beginning May 21; and increased service between Los Angeles and New York-JFK starting March 2.

The current seven daily flights between Los Angeles and New York-JFK will increase to eight in an effort to improve connections for New York and Northeast customers on long-haul international flights via Los Angeles. Additionally, Delta customers in the Southeastern U.S. will benefit from same-plane service between Atlanta and Sydney via LA.

Delta’s focus on Los Angeles is being supported by the recently announced expanded marketing agreement between Delta and Alaska Air Group that will make the two companies preferred partners on the West Coast.

Starting July 1, 2009, DL17 will depart Los Angeles at 2240 and arrive Sydney at 0640 two days later (after crossing the international date line).

Starting July 3, 2009, DL16 will depart Sydney at 0915 and Los Angeles at 0600 the same day (time saved by crossing the international date line).

The flight is expected to be 14 hours in one direction and 13 in the other.

The Sydney service will be operated on Delta's new Boeing 777-200LR in a two class configuration, fitted Delta's latest seating including fully flat-bed seating in business class in a herringbone layout.

Currently, the route is operated by Boeing 747-400's of Qantas and United in a 3 class configuration, but United is upgrading its aircraft, and Qantas is planning to introduce the Airbus A380 super jumbo with a 4th class, premium economy, on this route. More competition also coming in the form of Virgin Australia commencing operations with a Boeing 777-300ER in a three class configuration.

With this addition of capacity, fares are bound to head south (sorry for the pun), which while good news for the passengers, is not for the airlines. Will Delta or any of the other three airlines suffer the same fate as American and Continental and withdraw ? Only time will tell.

With the Sydney flight Delta will become only U.S. airline to fly to six continents, and is good news for the SkyTeam alliance, which is severely under-represented down-under. The Sydney service adds the crucial and missing Australia-North America link for the alliance.

Delta will operate Sao Paulo with a Boeing 767-300ER, in a two class configuration.

Starting May 21, 2009, DL233 will depart Los Angeles at 2100 Tue, Thu, Sun, and arrive Sao Paulo at 1320 the next day.

Starting May 22, 2009, DL234 will depart Sao Paulo at 2225 Mon, Wed, Fri, and arrive Los Angeles at 0730 the next day.