Video of my PAL student trainee experience!

The Trainee's Perspective: PAL 4-Star Global Airline

“PAL now a global 4-star airline. A big win for the Philippines.” February 2018

Wow! A 4-star airline in the Philippines! What a significant milestone for the country, all thanks to the great efforts and improvements of the flag courrier-- Philippine Airlines. Amazing isn’t? Being given this huge recognition signifies that PAL played all their cards correctly and their goals have been met. A huge success like this event expresses that everything in the company was flawless -- from the back office operations, middle office operations and front liners operations. These three go hand-in-hand as they always support one another, literally! An airline cannot function without having front liners right? Who would check in your bags in the airport? Who will serve you food on the plane? Imagine without having no one to operate for the back office, who’s gonna fix and answer all the delayed flights? Who’s gonna help you rebook your ticket?

Basically what I’m trying to say is that PAL was faithfully able to connect all the needed dots all throughout their company to attain such victory. -- But did they really?

So here I am, on my last ever college semester, wondering where could I be spending my last few months as a student… Hoping to find a company where I can train and use all the skills that I learned for the past four years in Enderun.

Philippine Airlines “your home in the sky” - the ‘prettier one’ or the ‘better option’ airline when you wanna book a ticket to a certain destination and in all honesty the service really is better, comparing it to other local airlines. So the thought of being able to be part of the PAL family was incredibly exciting, because I, along with family and friends are loyal PAL flyers. It really is our first option when it comes to traveling so the idea of me being able to train with them was very thrilling -- so I hit “send.” There goes my resume….

THE HIRING PROCESS

Surprisingly there was no interview whatsoever. One random day I got a missed call from an unknown number and as a paranoid person, I (totally forgetting I applied to companies) kept turning down the call and texted the number asking who it was. I didn’t get a reply, but the number kept calling, so my conscience got to me and I picked up the phone.

“Good morning this is Cath from Philippine Airlines”

Me, shocked and nervous: “Good morning Ms. Cath, may I help you?”

“Is this Chiara Alcazar?”

“Yes speaking!”

“May I know when you’re available to start your internship with us?”

“I will be available last week of January, Ms. Cath.”

“Great! See you on Friday for the orientation. Check your email for more details.” “Okay got it. Thank you Ms. Cath! I’ll see you.”

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Was that the easiest “interview” ever or what? I’m telling you, that was all. I guess I was easily accepted, thinking that the hiring process would be very difficult because of the company’s huge reputation. The weekend passed, and the day of the orientation came. I came an hour before the said time in order to mentally prepare myself, thinking that maybe there would be another interview. We were about 30 students who attended the orientation, and in my mind I was thinking that they were gonna let go of some people because during my first ever internship, we weren’t this much. I was wrong, everyone in the orientation was really accepted and we were all starting after the Christmas break. It wasn’t difficult  for me to make friends because everyone seemed pretty approachable. It was a breath of fresh air for me because all the other students came from different schools that I was not familiar with yet, so it was fun to get to know them, and hearing their different stories that I don’t usually hear.

January 22 2018, my first day! I was so excited because I enjoyed my first internship so much so my hopes were really up for PAL, thinking that I’d learn more things and experience something new since it’s a totally different industry. My first few weeks in PAL were not that interesting, since we were six interns in the department and I was the new one, I just kept on following what the others were doing. I couldn’t do my own thing because of course, I still had to learn how things were done in the office. During my first few weeks, I also saw how the office “culture” was like, and it saddened me because everything was “routine-like.” I saw that even I was able to fully-adjust, I still wouldn’t be able to do my own thing because. 1. We don’t even have our own tables -- we just sit on any empty table, or when someone is absent, we take their seat. 2. We don’t have our own computer/laptop -- so whenever they tell us to do something, we can’t accomplish the task right away, we either have to wait for an available computer or fulfill it the next day, when someone is absent. 3. Basically, our only set task is to do office errands, that will only take us 10-20 minutes to accomplish.

I really expected so much for my PAL internship experience, given that I love the airline so much, but from the department that I was assigned to train, I didn’t really learn anything. I understood that what my bosses were doing were very confidential, because they were holding million dollar accounts and they can’t just make their interns do they work, so that I understood. But from what I saw in the office, PAL has so much potential to teach their trainees things that both parties will both benefit from. PAL should have a set and systemised student trainee program, so that students like me aren’t just hired just like that, but a program that I can actually use all the many skills that I learned throughout college.

If I compare the way I felt on my first day to my last day, well all I can say was excitement! If I was at first curious and excited, towards the end, I was excited to end my hours. I really felt like I could have spent my 400 hours on another company that would have shaped me more, and challenged my skills, just like my first internship in Zalora. Thanks to my PAL experience though, I really saw what I wanted to do in the future --- that is not to stay in the office the whole day! I want to be able to talk to my future customers or clients, because I really see myself as a frontliner of a company. I feel like that’s what I’m best at, because the office life isn’t really for me.

My PAL internship experience -- LIVE on the blog soon! Watch out!