SIA sets up academy to offer external training programmes

NATIONAL carrier Singapore Airlines (SIA) on Tuesday said it has established a new arm that will offer training programmes in the broad areas of "service excellence, operational excellence, organisational innovation and digital transformation" to external businesses and organisations.

The Singapore Airlines Academy will be able to customise packages for individual companies, with courses including "Service Excellence and Leadership", as well as "Handling Challenging Customers", SIA said in a press statement. These will be conducted by SIA trainers who are certified instructors and facilitators with front-line experience.

In September this year, SIA began offering external courses when it collaborated with Khoo Teck Puat Hospital for its patient care officers. The three-day course included topics such as effective interpersonal communication, customer handling and learning how to exemplify values such as empathy, warmth and care, SIA said.

Vanessa Ng, SIA's senior vice-president of human resources, noted that establishing the academy is a "strategic move" for the group that has the potential to add a new source of revenue in the coming years.

Amid travel restrictions and reduced air travel during the Covid-19 pandemic, airlines such as SIA have been exploring innovative ways to generate revenue.

While its "flight to nowhere" idea was eventually dropped, SIA launched three programmes to offer the public a rare glimpse into what goes on behind the scenes at the national icon, and to give them an inflight dining experience in a stationary A-380 superjumbo plane or at home.

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The meals aboard the A-380 restaurant was so well-received that SIA added two new dates and more seats to its initial offering. This comes as more than 900 lunches were sold out within 30 minutes after bookings opened on Oct 12.

Separately, SIA also noted that demand for its training centre tours has been "overwhelming" after bookings opened last Sunday.

As at 10.07am on Tuesday, SIA shares were trading at S$3.41, up S$0.03 or 0.9 per cent.