Singapore Airlines (SIA), along with Singapore's Ministry of Health (MOH) and Public Service Division (PSD) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to commit to the collaboration over the planning and deployment for future national crises. The MOU builds upon the previously established collaboration, which began in 2020 during the pandemic.
"This MOU enables us to lock in and strengthen a successful public-private partnership that was forged during the COVID-19 pandemic," said PSD permanent secretary for development Teoh Zsin Woon.
The collaboration will include training of SIA and its subsidiary low-cost airline Scoot cabin crew volunteers to prepare them for various healthcare support roles in the possible event of any future crisis situations. The collaboration will also see tabletop exercises carried out to stress test their response protocols to crises.
At the height of the pandemic, various public agencies and healthcare institutions in Singapore urgently needed personnel to support the national fight against the pandemic. At the same time, SIA and Scoot significantly reduced their network operations after borders closed around the world, which resulted in surplus manpower within the SIA Group, particularly amongst cabin crew and pilots. Working closely with MOH and PSD, the SIA Group redeployed more than 2,000 staff to frontline roles in various public agencies and healthcare institutions from March 2020.
"Today’s agreement formalises our partnership with MOH and PSD, establishing a pathway to seamlessly redeploy our people once again, should a similar situation arise," said SIA CEO Goh Choon Phong.
MOH permanent secretary for health Chan Yeng Kit added: "even as MOH continues to build up our healthcare workforce to meet the needs of the population and implement plans to prepare for future national crises, we are growing our pool of trained healthcare volunteers through the SG Healthcare Corps."
The SG Healthcare Corps will facilitate the training and deployment of around 50 SIA and Scoot cabin crew, who will volunteer their time as SIA Group Ambassadors at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital and Changi General Hospital from April 2024.