This is a Singapore Airline (SIA) blog . The stories are written by an ex cabin crew. The stories are about the crew of SIA, especially concerning cabin crew and pilots.
Tuesday, September 20, 2022
Downside of being a cabin crew with SIA
6 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Hi BT
Im active commenter here.
Your list of cons is incomplete.
Here's are what you "missed" out:
1) Roughly same pay since 2003 when budget air and middle eastern air in competition with SQ thus affect CC overall salary.
2) Annual leaves has to be applied 1 year in advance. Even you applied, you might not get.
3) Little layover rest - Imagine outstation in London for only 2 night. You arrived Monday morning, leave Wednesday night. 1st day tired after 13/14 flight hours standing serving passengers then left 1 day to enjoy for few hours because need 2 hours report back to Heathrow for briefing and head back to SG.
4) Toxic work culture - A newbie most of time during probation period will get bullied by senior crew thus some junior crew had to wait till end of bond to quit. Otherwise, pay hefty for early termination.
5) Promotion - SQ have 7000+ crew members. Its competitive and there are few slots for being ranking members each year. Have to sacrifice day off in SG to attend lessons to attain points to get the attention of Mgmt to promote you.
Also, if your CC track record is bad,. the Mgmt can just not renew your contract.
Hi, BT, if I may, can I highlight a couple of minor cons although it could be easily overcome, namely:-
1. If a CC is back in his homebase, it does not mean off days. This is because there is always a few days on stand-by mode, which means that arranging social events, etc is not possible. The common view is this - "when on stand-by and waiting for a call, it won't come. The minute I step out of the house, there's a call". This was the case of the earlier days when the mode of contact was the land-line only (mobile phones haven't entered the market yet). Nowadays, with mobiles, not sure if responding to calls during stand-by is made easier. In those days, the CC has to stay at home.
2. Aircraft meals, rightly or wrong, is always viewed as less healthy because, amongst other reasons, there are slightly more sugar and salt, not fresh, but frozen and reheated on the plane. Whilst they are not so healthy they are safe to eat (safe because they are prepared to comply with strict hygiene standards).
3. For the female CCs, might have to put up with unwanted suitors on board and on ground. This might not be a con as some won't mind or some could actually get hitched to a suitable suitor.
Both work within the same tube, but are located differently. Its like the managers' office is always separated by a door, except that pilots do not manage cabin crew.
Tech crew's contact with cabin crew is via food & beverage and perhaps weather information. Pilots are not even allowed to wander around outside of the cockpit. Under the guise of security from terrorists, drunks and violent people ( cabin crew included).
The wonderful life of flying as a cabin crew is not available anymore. This is due to higher frequencies of flights per week for any city ( in some cases, its 3 flights a day ) even for far away cities in EU, Australia, New Zealand. This means the "recycling" time for crew has shortened, with minimum rest time dictated by legal regulations.
Example is Ultra Long Range flights to JFK ( longer than 14 hours) which mandates a minimum of 48hours rest at the destination.
As for other flight duration, minimum rest can vary between 10hours to 24hours after which the crew can legally be assigned for flight duties. Strangely, there is no law that defines minimum rest in the Air Navigation Act in Singapore. Much of these rules are formulated under the licensing body that regulates air transportation which is the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS).
This says a lot about how the Government does not hinder commercial interests. But that is a topic for another site, not here.
Most crew, current or past, would have some idea of what this minimum rest is all about. New or aspiring crew would need more time to feel how it works. It means less time in any city that the airline operates to.
Less time does not mean no time. It means everything needs to be rushed and your sleep is very much reduced if you want to experience that city. I suppose it is perfectly ok for young people below 30yrs... there is enough time for that Tik-Tok or Instagram, Tweet... for the older people reading, its that "kodak" moment.
Working at 30,000 feet, non stop for about 3 hours saps your strength. This is what you are compensated for.Not the same as a waiter. There will be air turbulence, and having to sit at your stations while service is suspended till the pilots give the all clear. And having to rush to resume the work, attend to angry passengers who need to visit the toilets, the parent with a crying child... the business class passenger who is absolutely an asshole.
Those nice pictures of crew in uniform smiling are posed. Those nice pictures of the crew ( not in uniform ) with the Eiffel tower, is rushed. They did not eat foie gras, or french bread for lunch.
Downside include top down handling of junior crew.These mean,their concerns,issues not rectified,in the hands of obnoxious and driven IFM,only court can solve their situation.The ranks have got to their head,a factors HR encourage ,qualities of Sexcy and Ah Quah horned to a fine art.Witnessed the past sagas,lack of prayers for them,they should have seen if coming,when they got cussed under every breathe.Trying to hit the high point in Pax,s Survey,means sacrifice and railroading of rights got squashed to a pulp.Be prepare to have all these imperfections,it's like making cc bad again,like Trump.The nazi style of jackbooting and Putin style of whitewashing black into white,expect the sign under the gate of Belsen,Works set one free.
The situation of pros and cons of joining the airline actually means nothing to wannabes. It's like durian, if l tell u the cons of eating it, eg its heaty and u can fall sick, u still get lots of people going for it. They need to experience it themselves before they can gauge whether it's true or not. The cons r all nitty gritty and can be overcome. The 5yrs contract basis of the job will be more of a concern to wannabes who r thinking of joining. You see, if u join at the age of 20yrs and complete 5 contracts,( 25yrs flying) you will be 45yrs when u retire. Now, this is a critical age to lose a job, bec the age factor will kick in and u will find it hard to get another with a reasonable pay scale This would mean, the crew would be looking at a short-term flying career and leave for another job. They have got no choice if a person is looking for advancement and security as well in their job. New crew r looking at a short-term career with the airline after the implementation of contracts. I noticed most girls fly for only 5yrs and they leave.
6 comments:
Hi BT
Im active commenter here.
Your list of cons is incomplete.
Here's are what you "missed" out:
1) Roughly same pay since 2003 when budget air and middle eastern air in competition with SQ thus affect CC overall salary.
2) Annual leaves has to be applied 1 year in advance. Even you applied, you might not get.
3) Little layover rest - Imagine outstation in London for only 2 night. You arrived Monday morning, leave Wednesday night. 1st day tired after 13/14 flight hours standing serving passengers then left 1 day to enjoy for few hours because need 2 hours report back to Heathrow for briefing and head back to SG.
4) Toxic work culture - A newbie most of time during probation period will get bullied by senior crew thus some junior crew had to wait till end of bond to quit. Otherwise, pay hefty for early termination.
5) Promotion - SQ have 7000+ crew members. Its competitive and there are few slots for being ranking members each year. Have to sacrifice day off in SG to attend lessons to attain points to get the attention of Mgmt to promote you.
Also, if your CC track record is bad,. the Mgmt can just not renew your contract.
Hi, BT, if I may, can I highlight a couple of minor cons although it could be easily overcome, namely:-
1. If a CC is back in his homebase, it does not mean off days. This is because there is always a few days on stand-by mode, which means that arranging social events, etc is not possible. The common view is this - "when on stand-by and waiting for a call, it won't come. The minute I step out of the house, there's a call". This was the case of the earlier days when the mode of contact was the land-line only (mobile phones haven't entered the market yet). Nowadays, with mobiles, not sure if responding to calls during stand-by is made easier. In those days, the CC has to stay at home.
2. Aircraft meals, rightly or wrong, is always viewed as less healthy because, amongst other reasons, there are slightly more sugar and salt, not fresh, but frozen and reheated on the plane. Whilst they are not so healthy they are safe to eat (safe because they are prepared to comply with strict hygiene standards).
3. For the female CCs, might have to put up with unwanted suitors on board and on ground. This might not be a con as some won't mind or some could actually get hitched to a suitable suitor.
My humble views, which could be wrong.
BusyBody aka KayPoh
Tech crew cannot be compared with cabin crew.
Both work within the same tube, but are located differently.
Its like the managers' office is always separated by a door, except
that pilots do not manage cabin crew.
Tech crew's contact with cabin crew is via food & beverage and perhaps
weather information. Pilots are not even allowed to wander around outside
of the cockpit. Under the guise of security from terrorists, drunks and violent people ( cabin crew included).
The wonderful life of flying as a cabin crew is not available anymore.
This is due to higher frequencies of flights per week for any city ( in some cases, its 3 flights a day ) even for far away cities in EU, Australia, New Zealand.
This means the "recycling" time for crew has shortened, with minimum rest time dictated by legal regulations.
Example is Ultra Long Range flights to JFK ( longer than 14 hours) which mandates a minimum of 48hours rest at the destination.
As for other flight duration, minimum rest can vary between 10hours to 24hours after which the crew can legally be assigned for flight duties. Strangely, there is no law that defines minimum rest in the Air Navigation Act in Singapore. Much of these rules are formulated under the licensing body that regulates air transportation which is the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS).
This says a lot about how the Government does not hinder commercial interests. But that is a topic for another site, not here.
Most crew, current or past, would have some idea of what this minimum rest is all about. New or aspiring crew would need more time to feel how it works.
It means less time in any city that the airline operates to.
Less time does not mean no time. It means everything needs to be rushed and your sleep is very much reduced if you want to experience that city. I suppose it is perfectly
ok for young people below 30yrs... there is enough time for that Tik-Tok or Instagram, Tweet... for the older people reading, its that "kodak" moment.
Working at 30,000 feet, non stop for about 3 hours saps your strength. This is what you are compensated for.Not the same as a waiter. There will be air turbulence, and having to sit at your stations while service is suspended till the pilots give the all clear. And having to rush to resume the work, attend to angry passengers who need to visit the toilets, the parent with a crying child... the business class passenger who is absolutely an asshole.
Those nice pictures of crew in uniform smiling are posed.
Those nice pictures of the crew ( not in uniform ) with the Eiffel tower, is rushed.
They did not eat foie gras, or french bread for lunch.
Downside include top down handling of junior crew.These mean,their concerns,issues not rectified,in the hands of obnoxious and driven IFM,only court can solve their situation.The ranks have got to their head,a factors HR encourage ,qualities of Sexcy and Ah Quah horned to a fine art.Witnessed the past sagas,lack of prayers for them,they should have seen if coming,when they got cussed under every breathe.Trying to hit the high point in Pax,s Survey,means sacrifice and railroading of rights got squashed to a pulp.Be prepare to have all these imperfections,it's like making cc bad again,like Trump.The nazi style of jackbooting and Putin style of whitewashing black into white,expect the sign under the gate of Belsen,Works set one free.
The situation of pros and cons of joining the airline actually means nothing to wannabes.
It's like durian, if l tell u the cons of eating it, eg its heaty and u can fall sick, u still get lots of people going for it.
They need to experience it themselves before they can gauge whether it's true or not.
The cons r all nitty gritty and can be overcome.
The 5yrs contract basis of the job will be more of a concern to wannabes who r thinking of joining.
You see, if u join at the age of 20yrs and complete 5 contracts,( 25yrs flying) you will be 45yrs when u retire.
Now, this is a critical age to lose a job, bec the age factor will kick in and u will find it hard to get another with a reasonable pay scale
This would mean, the crew would be looking at a short-term flying career and leave for another job. They have got no choice if a person is looking for advancement and security as well in their job.
New crew r looking at a short-term career with the airline after the implementation of contracts.
I noticed most girls fly for only 5yrs and they leave.
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