What is becoming of Singapore Airlines (SIA)?

Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Distasteful comments on SQ Girl.

I find this statement, made by a member of a forum discussing about the case of a SIA stewardess getting slapped by her passenger, distasteful and a great insult to the SIA girl :

colonelmustard:
Yesterday, 03:38 PM
#163 Singapore ladies in general have more proficient English than HK ladies but not the SQ girls sorry. Those are mostly not educated. I guess the "CX bigwigs" will just have a big shock when they hear them speak in the interviews.
For more go here

In another forum,I have found some kind of support for SIA and the "victim" stewardess . Go here to read.


A reply from SIA Public Affairs

Some people have reached all sorts of conclusions in this forum. However, permit me to explain the comment was made in response to a question concerning proceedings before the courts.Singapore Airlines abides strictly by the sub-judice convention; that is, we do not publicly discuss matters before the courts, in particular when the Airline is not, formally, a party to the case.However, in general terms, let me put firmly on record that Singapore Airlines adopts a zero tolerance approach to assaults on our staff in the course of their duty. Where an allegation is made, the Airline will support a decision by the staff member to refer the complaint to police (noting it is a personal decision as to whether they do so), and we will also provide reasonable support to staff to seek other remedies in the event a prosecution cannot be made.We do have established policies in place to support affected staff, which were developed jointly with our staff unions. The one thing I will say about this particular case is that these policies were followed in full. I am sorry that some readers may have drawn an alternative view from our need to abide by the sub-judice convention.However, I hope also that I have clarified some of the conclusions that various forum participants have erroneously come to about how Singapore Airlines deals with such cases.

Stephen Forshaw Vice President Public Affairs Singapore Airlines


Tuesday, February 19, 2008
SIA apologises for unpleasant incident

Feb 18, 2008

I REFER to the letter, 'SIA should have shown more understanding' (ST, Feb9), by Mr Law Cher Khiam. We have apologised to Mr Law for the unpleasant incident.
Our ground staff in Jakarta should have just accepted Mr Law's redemption ticket at face value for travel on the next flight to Singapore, given the flood situation.
Normally, customers holding redemption tickets are allowed to change their flight or date of travel as long as the change is made during the validity period, and on the same route. However, there is a cancellation fee of US$75, or 7,500 KrisFlyer frequent-flier miles, in the event of a change.
In Mr Law's case, he did not have enough KrisFlyer miles to pay for the cancellation fee. So he bought a new ticket which was for a return Jakarta- Singapore-Jakarta trip, not one-way Jakarta-Singapore. We will refund the additional collection he was charged versus the usual fare he would have paid for a return ticket.
As a practice, we do waive cancellation fee for customers who have to change flights due to extraordinary circumstances like bad weather, which are beyond their control.
Regarding the matter of crew rest, there are universally established mandatory minimum rest hours for air crew due to safety reasons before they can re-operate a flight. For short-haul routes, our crew do operate the turnaround on the same route or in combination with other routes to maximise the duty time allowable.

Ong Boon Khim Vice-President, Customer Affairs Singapore Airlines


Monday, February 18, 2008
Shocked by behaviour of SQ leading stewardess

MY PARENTS and I were on flight SQ865 on Jan 13, from Hong Kong to Singapore.
The Leading Stewardess was giving out The Straits Times and I requested a copy. I also asked her politely to pass another set of newspapers to my father, who was seated in another row.
To my surprise, she told me loudly to share the newspapers since we are one family and that there were still many other passengers waiting to get a copy. Can you imagine how embarrassing it was for me?
How would the other passengers think - that I was greedy? I was just helping my parents as they were seated elsewhere and could not speak English.
She could have said something along the line of "I'm sorry Madam, but can you please share if you don't mind as we are running out of newspapers".
I was stunned by her rudeness and could only manage a reply of "Okay".
Singapore Airlines is supposed to be well-known for its good service, but why was I given that kind of treatment?
Was it because I was seated in the Economy class?
Ms Tan Ai Ching Serene

Above complaint drew 474 comments from this forum alone, after which SIA apologised. See SIA apology below.

SIA says sorry for cabin crew's behaviour

I REFER to the letter by Ms Tan Ai Ching, Serene (my paper, Jan 23).
We apologise for Ms Tan's unpleasant experience. We have looked into this issue following her feedback.
Demand for The Straits Times was higher than usual during Ms Tan's flight, and our crew, therefore, asked customers who were travelling together to share copies.
We have stressed the need for our cabin crew staff to be mindful of the manner in which they communicate with our customers.
I would like to assure Ms Tan that no offence was meant.

Mr William KohDivisional Vice-President, Cabin Crew Operations
Singapore Airlines