SIA enhancing personalisation in f&b offerings

As part of Singapore Airlines’ (SIA) efforts to deliver a more personalised experience for customers, the Airline will be embarking on several enhancements to its in-flight offerings.

At its World Gourmet Forum today, SIA announced that it will be the first airline to enable Premium Economy Class customers to pre-order main courses from its in-flight menu, from anywhere in the Airline's global network from 1 May 2019. This follows the initial launch to Suites, First Class and Business Class customers on all flights across its network last year, in what was an industry first.

With this new initiative, customers may pre-select their meal choices via the Airline’s website or mobile app anytime from three weeks before travel up to 24 hours before flight departure.

As such, customers not only enjoy a more personalised dining experience but are also ensured of their preferred meal choice from either the in-flight menu or the ‘Book the Cook’ service.

In another industry first, Singapore Airlines will be enhancing its Child Meal1 programme to enable parents to pre-order specific meals for their children from three different cuisine categories – Asian, Western and Vegetarian. This will give parents greater visibility and choices over the child meals in advance of travel, rather than discovering what meal will be served only when they are on board. Parents can visit the Airline’s website up to 24hr before

the day of travel to view the dishes planned for their flight and select the one that best suits their child’s preferences.

The move comes after an intensive focus group and meal tasting session conducted to gather insights from parents and children to better understand their preferences. The Airline will roll out this initiative to all cabin classes from June 2019 for flights departing Singapore, extending progressively to flights departing from overseas destinations from August 2019.

Focus group sessions and targeted surveys were also conducted for two of the Airline’s other popular special meals – the Indian Vegetarian Meal2 and Muslim Meal3. Feedback received from these sessions enabled the Airline to improve on these meals by reviewing the ingredients and serviceware used. The frequency of menu rotation will also be increased to provide greater variety for customers.

“Singapore Airlines has always been well known for its focus on customer service, and we see personalisation in in-flight dining offerings as being key to creating an even more memorable travel experience,” said SIA’s Executive Vice President Commercial, Mr. Mak Swee Wah.

“Apart from focus groups and targeted surveys, we are also leveraging on data analytics to better track meal preferences and customers’ needs.”

For details of SIA’s Book the Cook offerings, ‘Deliciously Wholesome’ Programme, Authentically Asian Meals and Popular Local Fare, please refer to Annex A.

· SIA will be the first airline to offer worldwide pre-ordering of meals for Premium Economy Class

· Parents of young flyers will be able to pre-order meals from three different cuisine types as part of the enhanced Child Meal programme

· Menu choices for Indian Vegetarian and Muslim meals will be enhanced and rotated more frequently for greater variety