In-flight wellness of Singapore Airlines

Singapore Airlines’ (SIA) acclaimed International Culinary Panel (ICP) will be embarking on a new approach in the year ahead with seasonal menus that are prepared in a lighter cuisine style. The initiative, which was one of many announced at SIA’s World Gourmet Forum today, is the latest addition to the Airline’s series of in-flight wellness offerings.

 

SIA’s World Gourmet Forum 2019, titled “A Taste of the Future”, is a gathering of the Airline’s ICP Chefs and Wine Consultants to explore the latest dining trends and showcase new in-flight initiatives. In addition to the new seasonal menus, today’s event saw the unveiling of SIA’s refreshed beverage programme, which included an extensive selection of artisanal wines being made available in-flight, new initiatives for a more personalised in-flight dining experience, as well as the Airline’s push towards greater sustainability on board.

 

“Customers are increasingly mindful about their diet and the type of ingredients that go into their meals, and using fresh produce that’s in season as well as a lighter cuisine style are becoming more important in helping health-conscious customers feel more refreshed after their flights,” said SIA’s Executive Vice President Commercial, Mr Mak Swee Wah. “Our International Culinary Panel chefs are on board the wellness movement with their own creations to enable travellers to eat just as healthily in the air as on the ground.”

 

In another industry first, Singapore Airlines will be enhancing its Child Meal  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 Meal  and Muslim Meal . 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.

 

 

The seasonal menus are complementary to SIA’s in-flight wellness movement that has been rolled out. The Airline continues to work with premiere integrative wellness brand Canyon Ranch on its ultra long haul US flights, and the wellness offerings, specifically the cuisines on board, have been warmly received by customers in helping to make their travels more comfortable. Customers on SIA’s upcoming non-stop flights to Seattle from September this year can also enjoy the Canyon Ranch cuisines. SIA also recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with homegrown wellness brand COMO Shambhala to introduce wellness cuisines from the second half of this year for selected flights out of Singapore. 

 

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. 

 

Set up in 1998, the International Culinary Panel (ICP) comprises award-winning chefs from the culinary capitals of the world. For the past 21 years, the Panel has been working closely with the Airline's own chefs to specially create the unique selection that is available for customers in all classes on board. On average, the ICP chefs design about 50 new in-flight meals for Singapore Airlines annually. The Panel includes: Sanjeev Kapoor of India, Georges Blanc of France, Matt Moran of Australia, Suzanne Goin of the United States, Alfred Portale of the United States, Zhu Jun of China, Carlo Cracco of Italy and Yoshihiro Murata of Japan.