What matters?

At last, picked up the Sunday times after 2 weekends being away from home. Am a fan of Lee Wei Ling, and automatically got drawn to her article in A35. However, the 'street view' column on the right of the page distracted me... it said, "As a Singaporean on board an SIA flight, I felt embarrased about the imporoper pronunciation and inability of the crew to communicate the basics". Well, I didn't know what was the background of this, but went on to read what others responded.

Well, I agreed with one of the respondents who said "... we should not generalise...". Indeed, the reaction got to do with 2 things:

• Is it a trend? (i.e. you simply happen to see and hear from not just one, but 2, 3, 4, 5... crew members?)
• Is the reader having overly high expectation of our Singaporean crew members and hopefully they speak with the American/Australian/ British slang? Ha! that would be terrible to our ears!

I think what matters most to me... is the EXPERIENCE... of course, being able to be understood is one aspect of it. Over time, as I travelled, I learnt to see flight service as a whole package - not just the contact in the air. Perhaps you may turn to me and say, I'm demanding! But, that's what make my choice of airline when travelling (of course, I've no choice if travel in a tour group).

The experience starts from checking in... I took for granted good services (yes... I always did until I encountered what I think is unacceptable) until a few years back when I travelled on my own with an airline (because of the cheaper tickets, but not budget) to Beijing. The ground crew's service was not customer-orientated at all! The minimial is being attentative to the needs when someone enquired or asked for assistance! Well, that experience opened the first 'chapter' (blog post) of the journey.

To-date, SIA is still my number one airline... of course, it comes with a certain price tag too... But really, it's the attention the crew give that matters, the warmth you get when in no-man's 'land'... It's also my number 1 local product that, as a Singaporean, am proud to have :D