A MANILA-BASED flight attendant (FA) training school is expecting more enrollees from Cebu next year, following the positive reception of Cebuanos during its pilot training here.
“It was a challenging yet very successful endeavor for ICATS,” said Princess Joy Garcia, president and chief executive officer of International Cabin Attendant Training School (ICATS).
ICATS brought to Cebu its Connecting Flight Program, an initiative that aims to bring the training school closer to the FA aspirants living in the provinces.
Some 11 aspiring FAs from Cebu joined the first batch of the training program which ended this month. Most of the batch 1 trainees are graduates of courses like hotel and restaurant management, education and psychology.
ICATS will hold a second training here next year. It targets to train 30 students.
“The trainees from Cebu are enthusiastic, joyful, energetic and very much open to the teachings and absorbed them well based on their exam results. Given the limited time for the training, they were able to perform at their optimum, which is a great trait in becoming future aviation professionals,” said Garcia.
Among the strengths, she noted, are the trainees’ punctuality, strong people skills and the ability to adapt to time pressure. Areas to improve on, however, are communication skills as well as personality development.
The firm has a job assist program. “We are with them until they land in any airline of their choice,” said Garcia.
ICATS is embarking on an aggressive marketing promotion and training to aspiring FAs to help support the growth of the local and global aviation industry.
After Cebu, ICATS hopes to bring the program to the Ilocos and Cagayan Valley regions.
“We are considering coming back to Cebu next year with the hope of having a branch in Cebu eventually,” said Garcia, citing the province’s abundant talent pool.
For the past eight years, ICATS has been focusing on Manila. It was in 2012 when it reached out to Davao and this year to Cebu. ICATS has already produced 700 graduates from its training program.