SIA training, four months, from a Malaysian trainee: the schedule, the grooming module, the service exams, and why it is the longest course in the industry
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#1 Malaysian, month three of the SIA course, and the training is famous for its length and nobody outside it knows what fills four months. Here is the shape, written on a Sunday, which is the one day.
Month one: safety
The same SEP as everywhere: doors, slides, equipment, fire, decompression, ditching, by aircraft type (the A350, the 777, the 787, the A380 for some). The same 90 percent pass marks. The same exact number questions. The same pool. The same first aid. What is different is the pace: it is thorough rather than fast, and the instructors expect the drills to be perfect rather than passable. A door drill that is correct but not smooth is done again.
Month two: the service foundation
This is where the length comes from. The service at SIA is a product the airline sells and the training treats it that way. The meal service in economy, step by step, with the specific way each item is placed. The beverage service. The way to address a passenger, the way to kneel, the way to hand a menu. Wine, the basics of it, because the crew are expected to describe it. The tablet systems. Assessed by role play, with instructors as passengers, and the standard is exact.
Month three: grooming, deportment and the front cabins
The grooming module, which is a real module of some days: the hair, the makeup palette, the kebaya and how it is worn and maintained, the posture, the walk. Assessed. Then business class service, which is a different service with more steps, and a first exposure to the suites. And the language of the cabin: the specific phrases, the specific tone.
Month four: consolidation and the flights
Putting it together in full mock flights on the aircraft mock ups: boarding, safety, service, disruption, landing, in real time, assessed as a crew. Then the supernumerary flights, two or three, on the line, watching and helping. Then the wings.
Why it is four months
Because the airline has decided that the service standard is worth two extra months of training and it can afford them. The safety part is the same as a six week course. The other ten weeks are the product. You come out of it able to do a service that most airlines' crew learn on the line over a year, and you come out of it tired.
The days
08:00 to 17:30, study after, one day off. Uniform standards apply from week one. Attendance is absolute. The batch is close, because four months is a long time to be tired together.
For the Jakarta walk in people: this is what is on the other side. It is a lot. It is also the best training I could imagine, and I am from a country where the national carrier's course is six weeks.
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#2 SIA, and every line, and I would add that the four months is also why SIA crew are hired by every airline in the world when they leave. The training is the CV. Two more months, Lily. The wings are worth it.
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#3 SIA, and the 'a door drill that is correct but not smooth is done again' line is the whole SIA philosophy in one sentence. Smooth is the standard. Correct is the minimum.
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#4 Jakarta, walk in in three weeks, and reading the four months in detail has made it real and made it frightening and made me want it more. All three.
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#6 Korean Air, and our course is closer to three months with the same structure: safety, then a long service and grooming block, then consolidation. The Asian carriers train the product. It is why the product is what it is.
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#7 easyJet, four weeks, and reading four months with a grooming module of days and a wine block I understand for the first time why the SIA service is what it is. We learned the trolley in a day. Different product. Different course.
