Kelana Jaya (15 September 2011) : Malaysia Airlines honoured 25 cabin staff who ‘graduated’ today at the Malaysia Airlines Academy in Kelana Jaya for mastering conversational Arabic language. The foreign language competency development is in line with the national carrier’s ongoing cabin crew service enhancement.
All 25 cabin crew graduates had undergone 100 training hours to complete the Advanced Elementary level, which is the continuation of the Elementary level that they completed last year. For the Advanced Elementary level, the training still emphasized on speaking skills using more complex vocabulary and sentence structure. The instructors for this Arabic course are Arab native speakers from ALDIWAN Arabic Language Center, Kuala Lumpur.
Following completion of the training, the graduates will be equipped with advance communication skills to interact with Arabic speaking passengers. They will also be rated in their ability to make announcements in Arabic, to ensure that they are competent to do this on Malaysia Airlines’ flights between Malaysia and the Middle East routes. To keep these skills constantly polished, the crew will be assigned on a regular basis throughout the year on routes such as between Kuala Lumpur – Jeddah, Dammam and Dubai.
MAS Arabic Graduation: Malaysia Airlines cabin crew at the graduation ceremony with their instructors.
Malaysia Airlines’ Executive Vice President In-flight Services, Dato’ Mohd Salleh Ahmad Tabrani said, “In the airline industry, the crew have a vital role to play to determine the success of the company. As cabin crew, they will be spending more time with our customers than anyone of us, and many of our valued customers have very special and unique needs. One of their primary functions is to provide excellent service to our passengers.
"We are facing a lot more challenges now compare to 10 years ago. With globalization, travellers are becoming more demanding about the kind of service they get on board our flight. Through this initiative, we hope to meet and exceed our customer expectations with stronger focus on route specific needs.
The introduction of Arabic speaking cabin crew is in line with our strategy to provide branded customer experience strategy through customised service while we continue to deliver consistently high quality hospitality inflight,” he said.
In 2010, the airline trained 100 cabin crew in conversational Arabic and French. On top of that, MAS has also introduced two more language classes, German and Spanish, in their foreign language program during the 1st Quarter of 2011. In addition, Malaysia Airlines today has cabin crew of six different nationalities to cater for the special needs of our customers on selected routes to and from Japan, Korea, India, South Africa and South America.
Malaysia Airlines cabin crew have established a consistent record of providing one of the highest standards of in-flight service in the airline industry. The airline has also received the accolade of “World’s Best Cabin Staff” by Skytrax over six years, 2001-2004, 2007 and 2009 – the most for any airline.
Issued by:
Media Relations Unit/Communications Division, Malaysia Airlines, Subang
[Source]
Categories:
News
