Singapore Armed Forces Why do SAF officers fly business class to exercises?
An army officer I knew from my national service days was travelling to Australia recently for a military exercise. From his social media account, I saw that he was travelling in business class on a commercial airline (Air New Zealand). Another friend, a junior NSF officer, also travelled in business class to an overseas military exercise some years ago.

Thus, it seems that commissioned officers, whether regulars or NSFs, get to enjoy the privilege of travelling in business class for overseas missions.

I am curious over the need for them to do so, although this may be acceptable if the entire flight is chartered by the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) or if the officers fork out their own money for a seat upgrade.

Is it because officers need the privacy on board to work on sensitive documents? Some might argue that officers deserve to travel on business class because they serve the country. But if that is the basis, then all soldiers should travel on business class too since their contributions are not insignificant either.

I can accept it if the SAF has a legitimate reason behind such an arrangement, but without any justification, the public may construe this as an unnecessarily extravagant use of taxpayers' resources. After all, a business class ticket is much more expensive than an economy class one.

Sean Lim Wei Xin

Source: https://www.straitstimes.com/forum/why-do-saf-officers-fly-business-class-to-exercises

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