SINGAPORE AIRLINE

An Investigation for Reasons of High Turnover in Singapore Airlines Cabin Crew Department



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An Investigation for Reasons of High Turnover in Singapore Airlines Cabin Crew Department

Chapter 1: Introduction

Company Background

Singapore Airlines-SIA is a globally operating premium commercial airline providing highest quality services to all its customers with aim of maximizing returns for all its internal and external stakeholders. It began as a small regional airline in Asia back in 1972 and has come a long way to become a globally recognized airline carrier whose brand is now attributed with its superior services and of course its national image of the Singapore Airline Girl or the famous Sarong uniform clad Air Hostesses, which represented the airline's commitment to warm customer service and care. Today, having one of the youngest fleet in the air the operations of Singapore Airlines span across six continents, providing innovative service products to its customers. Many of the Airline's services have been a trendsetter in the global airline industry alone with it having introduced free choice of meals and headsets as its in-flight service to economy class passengers in the 1970's. In addition, the airline also introduced satellite based in-flight telephone in the early 1990's along with being the first passenger carrier in the world to launch non-stop flight from Singapore to Los Angeles in 2004 as well as making smart investments in purchasing new aircrafts such as A380's and Boeings B777 (www.singaporeair.com).

Problem Statement

Globally, the airline industry is confronted with several challenges such as coming up with new set of service offerings to attract new customers, cutthroat competition, lower barriers to entry into the sector for new airline operators as well as highly volatile fuel costs along with phobia of under-performing and closing their annual accounts in red ink. In Asia, other broad, yet vital, threats' surrounding the airline sector is the unpredicted outbursts of bird flu, terrorism threats and natural disasters such as tsunami, all have greatly impacted the airline sector's performance and operations in the past few years. According to Heracleous & Wirtz (2009), in 2006 alone the global airline industry suffered from a net loss of over five hundred million US dollars that tweaked the net loss of this industry to over four billion US dollars for the period from 2001-2006. These figures have tended to worsened further since 2006, so much so that since 2008, the airline sector is ranked one of the worst performing industries in the Fortune Global 500 rankings. Hence, to no surprise the employee turnover rate of the airline industry continuously remains to be high in alignment with the volatile nature of this sector, and the employee turnover rate in Singapore Airline tends to be high for the same purposes. Hence, the aim of this research paper is to identify and to explore in-depth the reasons for high employee turnover rate amongst the airline's cabin crew.

Rationale for Selection

The rationale and purpose behind for opting for this study is twofold. The first reason being that as a globally successful ...