Taiwan flight attendants to lead crew members at Spring Airlines
Wang Yu (left), president of Spring Airlines, and another official deliver appointments to Yei Yuching (middle left) and Huang Chiaying to serve as chief flight attendants with the budget carrier.
Two of the first batch of Taiwan flight attendants working for mainland airlines were promoted to the role of chief attendants with Spring Airlines on Wednesday.
Yei Yuching and Huang Chiaying, both 26 years old, began leading crew members with the budget carrier on flights between Shanghai and Xi’an in northwest Shaanxi Province, and Shanghai and Shijiazhuang in northern Hebei Province from today.
“I feel a bit nervous because I used to rely a lot on my chief attendants, but now I have become someone to be relied on by other crew members,” Yei said.
The Shanghai-based carrier became the first mainland airline to recruit flight attendants from Taiwan Island in 2014. It recruited 29 attendants, one male and 28 females, during two recruitment campaigns in 2014 and 2016. Over 4,000 people on the island have taken part in recruitment interviews, the airline said.
Flight attendants from Taiwan are famous for their "tender voices and touching smiles," and they were recruited mainly to serve passengers on flights between Shanghai and Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, said Xiao Fei, an official with the cabin department of the airline.
“The practice is also targeted at enhancing cross-Strait exchange among young people,” Xiao said. Two flight attendants recruited from Taiwan got married in Shanghai, and others were preparing for weddings with local people, according to the airline.
“I used to be quite homesick when I first joined the airline in 2014, but now I take Shanghai as my second home,” Huang said. She was unaccustomed to the city’s weather and language in the beginning, but soon overcame those difficulties with the help of her colleagues.
Yei and Huang began serving passengers from May 2015 and have each flown more than 2,500 hours, the minimum required to become a chief attendant. They passed strict exams and a series of tests in order to be promoted, the airline said.
Spring Airlines became the first mainland airline to open a direct flight between Shanghai and Kaohsiung in October 2013. It is now also operating flights between Shanghai and Taipei as well as Shijiazhuang and Taipei.
The average load factors on these flights have remained over 90 percent, the carrier said.
