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…

I got this inspiration from my friend Aaron Tan. He went for one term local exchange to NUS. So I am thinking if it will be great if we can go for an exchange every term. Let say as Professional Exchange Student.

So the degree will be Bachelor Degree in General Elective Majoring in International Communication. Every term, students are required to do an exchange or two to any other university approved college or institutions. The example program will be something like…

I am sure the fun-factor of this program is more than 10 out of 5. The best part is, the GPA is almost irrelevant since 90% of the modules taken are pass/fail subjects. So if there is scholarship for this kind of program, the GPA requirements will be pretty much for formality sake only. In reality, the scholarship criteria will be somewhat like… ‘must be able to go to at least 2 different continents every year excluding summer term’ or ‘must be able to be conversant in one new language every years’ or ‘acquiring 500 new Facebook/MSN friends every term’ - Actually Facebook is better since it can be easily verified.. Frankly, I am not worried with the details. I am sure people can come up with all the weirdest stuff I could not think of.

Obviously due to the nature of the program, students will graduate with at least 20 General Elective modules (not counting the half credit courses) and unable to specialize in anything but networking (read: clubbing) and distinguishing different types of alcoholic beverages from six continents minus antartica.

Of course to support government campaign to retain talent within Singapore, the last destination will be one of the local university. Hopefully the graduate will stay for good.

Above all, it is a journey more daring

Did I miss anything?