Singapore Airlines (SIA) yesterday announced that Benjamin Chan (曾國銘) was taking over as head of its Taiwan operations effective from this week. He succeeds predecessor, Toh Giam Ming (卓嚴民), who has been posted to India.
Chan, 34, graduated from Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University and joined SIA in 1999.
He has considerable international experience with SIA, having previously worked as an assistant manager in Frankfurt, before being promoted to the position of station manager for Auckland and New York.
He was later the manager for northern Italy from 2006 until last year, before being posted to South Africa as general manager for central and southern Africa.
By assuming the post of general manager of SIA Taiwan, which was established in 1967, Chan will ensure SIA continues product upgrades and service innovation for customers, a company statement said.
SIA announced last month that as early as the first half of next year, it will launch a full suite of in-flight connectivity services on Airbus A380, Airbus A340-500 and Boeing 777-300ER aircraft.
That means travelers will be connected even at 10,000m in the air, as they will have access to Wi-Fi and mobile telephony services.
The mobile telephony services will allow passengers to send and receive text messages, send and receive e-mails over smartphones, as well as make and receive calls.
The airline is also set to prointroduce electronic versions of magazines on its “KrisWorld” inflight entertainment system.
These will include digital versions of its three inflight magazines — SilverKris travel magazine, KrisShop sales catalog and KrisWorld inflight entertainment guide — as part of a trial with a privately held Singapore-based company, SmarttPapers Aviation Pte Ltd.
SIA said it aims to extend this initiative to other publications at a later date, including menu cards and more than 100 international and local magazines currently carried on board. The plan also includes the future rollout of e-newspapers and e-books.
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