f.r.e.d

Whatever respect i had left for SG’s main daily,  it vanished with the coverage of the recent Singapore Airshow.

But first, about the inaugural airshow that opened to the public on Saturday, Feb. 23. To say it was badly managed is like calling Moses Lim slim. Together with 3 friends, Ben and i were at White Sands at 9.30am. There was already a significant queue, which we thought might dissipate by the time we finished breakfast at MacDonald’s.

We got in line at 10am, and the queue by then had probably swelled to double, and looped around. It took a while to find the end of the queue, and because there was not enough crowd control personnel we even joked that the organiser should have made a sign that said “Queue begins here” which will be passed from the last person to the next who joins the line.

To cut the long story short, we took nearly 2.5 hrs to reach the entrance of the Airshow, and because the aerial display was starting, we gave up queuing and instead hung around the canal to catch the show. Later on it took another 30mins for our friends to get through the security check (Ben and i went through the VIP/exhibitor line). When we started to exit just before 4.30pm, we were shocked to find a huge bottleneck at the exit area to the point that the staff had to let people leave in batches.

(During the last Asian Aerospace, we went through more or less the same routine and it never bordered on ‘painful’.)

I shouldn’t complain, for some others had it worse. But of course, you only read the ‘horror stories’ if you picked up a copy of Tuesday’s Today (select Voices section and click on the page with the sketch of two men and a lady).

The official newspaper of Singapore Airshow 2008, on the other hand, deemed it fit to publish a few short letters damning the poor organisation of the event, peppered with a commendation at how the show did not disappoint and a suggestion or two on how to better manage the event. (I refuse to even link this post to its site – why grant them those extra page views?)

If i were a disgruntled Airshow visitor (and i was!), i would not have simply sent my letter to Today. I’d have let the official newspaper of the Singapore Airshow 2008 know how displeased i was. And judging by the degree of restlessness and frustration that was on the ground that day, i’d imagine there’ll be more letters of complaint than the mild ones that were published.

But i leave it to you to decide, which paper had more integrity this time round.