SIA Flight Stewardess year one from a Malaysian who just graduated: the first flights, the audits in practice, the Singapore flat share and the money home
-
#1 Lily, Malaysian, and I wrote the SIA training and the Malaysian applicant threads. I graduated three weeks ago and this is year one, week three, because the training threads end at the wings and the first flights are their own thing.
The first flights
Supernumerary first, then the real ones. Regional first: Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Bangkok, Denpasar, Manila, Hong Kong, the short sectors with the full service that SIA does even on 90 minutes. Then the medium: Tokyo, Sydney, Delhi. The long haul (London, Frankfurt, New York, Los Angeles) comes when the roster allows in the first months. The first real flight was a KL turnaround and I did the meal service in my sleep because the training had drilled it into my hands.
The audits in practice
Evelyn's thread explained the system. In practice, week three: I have no idea if I have been audited yet and I have treated every passenger in 34C as the assessor. The Leading Stewardess on my second flight told me that is the correct state of mind and that it becomes natural by month six. I am waiting for natural.
The kebaya
Wearing it on the line is different from the fitting. The walk, the sitting, the bending to the overhead bin in a sarong kebaya is a skill and the seniors have techniques they teach in the galley. The grooming check before every flight is real and detailed and I have already been corrected on the hair once, kindly.
The Singapore flat share
Bedok, with two batch mates (a Malaysian and an Indonesian), a three bedroom HDB flat near the MRT, the rent split three ways and still a large share of the salary. The Malaysian crew logic from my earlier thread holds: live in the east, go home on days off. The Johor commute idea died in training when the standby rules were explained.
The money home
The first salary came at the end of the first month and I sent a share to my mother in Penang the same day. The ringgit conversion made it a number she cried at. This is why the Malaysians are here and I am not shy about it.
The batch
Scattered onto the roster, the WhatsApp group still active, the Indonesian flat mate and I flying together once by chance already. The month four warning from the Emirates thread is in my head. The Malaysian community in Singapore is large and it is where I will rest when month four comes.
What surprised me
How much the seniors teach. How tired the regional four sector days are (SIA does full service on every one). How the audit mindset makes the service better and the day longer. And how proud I am in the kebaya at Changi at 5am, which I did not expect to feel and do.
I will write year one at month six. The Malaysian applicants can ask anything until then.
-
#2 SIA, and 'treat every passenger in 34C as the assessor' is exactly the state to be in. It becomes natural by month six, the Leading is right. And the proud at 5am feeling does not go. Nine years and it is still there.
-
#3 SIA, and the kebaya bending technique is the thing I wish someone had written down for the new ones. The seniors teach it in the galley because it cannot be written. Ask every senior for theirs.
-
#4 Jakarta, walk in in two weeks, and Lily's year one is the thread I will read the night before. The Bedok flat share, the money home, the pride at 5am. All of it.
-
#5 Filipino at a regional carrier, and the 'full service on every 90 minute sector' is the SIA thing every other Asian carrier crew talks about. Four sectors of it is a specific tiredness.
-
#6 Emirates, and the month four warning travelling from our thread to the SIA thread is the forum working. It comes for everyone. Rest in the community when it does.
-
#7 Emirates joiner in five weeks, and reading a year one week three from another airline is the most useful thing for my own week three. The batch scattering, the seniors teaching, the first salary sent home. Thank you.
-
#8 Vietnamese, applying to SIA, and the Indonesian and Malaysian flat mates in Bedok is the image I now have of year one. Regional community, the east, the MRT. Realistic and warm.
-
#9 @evelynsin I have asked three seniors for the bending technique and received three different techniques and all of them work. The galley is the manual.
