Some of the information I am going to present below may not be accurate and some part of the information may be classified. My source which is supposed to be quite obvious by now said this change will be implemented starting September 2008. So… still got to prepare for the change in Singapore - USA (air) travel industry.

I will present in point form since… I am lazy. Most of them are verbatim.

• An A380 aircraft requires USD350,000.00 as at present, worth of jet fuel each round trip to New York from Singapore. There will be more such big birds in the sky soon, with SQ accruing a few more such aircrafts. 
• The crunch here is travel on coach or economy class is going to be phased out for such aircrafts.  The airfare on economy class does not cover the operating cost for the airlines.
• Currently, there is only one flight operating to New York from Singapore via Frankfurt.  The seats on economy class for the flights Singapore/New York/Singapore is near impossible to get hold of.  Why you may ask? This is due to the strong Euro Dollar.  It is lucrative for the airlines to board passengers from Frankfurt to New York as the airfare is higher than that from Singapore to New York.
• The number of seats bound to USA will be decreased as SQ will stop flying Taipei/Los Angeles route.  Eva Air is going to cut some of their USA destinations and China Airlines will stop flying Taipei/Seattle.
• Thai International has stopped flying to New York and will be down sizing their aircrafts for long haul sectors.
• The route left for most USA bound flights is via Tokyo. The Japanese market for flights from Japan to USA is still very lucrative and the airfare is higher than that from Singapore, therefore, here again the airline would shift their flight load to board passengers from Japan rather than from Singapore.
• All the above boils down to the possibility of getting seats out of Singapore to USA, making it near impossible.
• Domestic carriers within USA, will be charging for check in baggage at 1st piece USD40 and 2nd piece USD25 up to a maximum weight of 23 kg.
• Travelers are going to be inconvenienced, as they would have to queue up to have their baggage weighted and paid for prior to boarding pass issuance.
• Minimum connecting times between flights would now have to be extended to at least 4 hours to clear both security and payment of check-in baggage, especially for year end home leave travel.
• Number of USA domestic flights would be reduced and the weekday/weekend fares will be reinstated at a higher fare level.  The weekday fares are estimated to cost at between 50 – 70% more than that of weekend fares.
• Please book and ticket early especially for year end travel back to USA and where possible do not change schedules booked as it is going to be difficult to get seats from Singapore.
• Expect drastic changes in the industry as airlines will be taking measures to be viable in this difficult economic times in the USA.

Sounds possible…

Many new SMU students, AND some current SMU students, still do not know how to properly configure their computer. Being as slackers as CIT being undermanned, many SMU students conveniently asked (usually) their SIS peers to configure their laptops. In general, IT-literate students will kindly allow themselves to be outsourcing destination for many things that are supposedly very basic and easy and beyond their scope of academic work (not to mention quite boring)

However, I always believe that the best help you can get is the ability to help yourself. So with that philosophy in mind, here is the list of super basic stuffs that SMU students need to know.

• Setting up Ms Outlook to receive email (PDF)
• Setting up SMS password reset system (PDF)
• Mac OS guide (PDF)
• Connect to Student Wireless Network (PDF)
• Anything else that may be relevant (CIT Website)

The PDF guides may not be of the latest version. Refer to CIT website for the latest info. All the information above can be found at CIT website for free.

Nevertheless, the reason I convert the first four guides into PDFs is to make it convenient for people to store these very basic stuff into their laptop. This will enable people to configure their basic laptop function themselves without the need to connect to internet OR to call CIT. The PDFs also makes it easier to email help to one of the most IT-illiterate guys in your team. Just email them.

Yes. Feel free to download them and store them well in your laptop.

Do not get me wrong, CIT provides great services to SMU population. It is just there is too few of them around. With this handy information at hand, on/off line, I believe we all can lessen the burden of those people at CIT