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On Dec. 9, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung shared a photo of himself posing with Rafidah, a Chief Stewardess with Singapore Airlines.

She's the one in red.

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, air travel was sharply curtailed and many pilots and cabin crew were grounded.

Like many others, Rafidah joined MOH to assist with contact tracing.

In 2020, SIA announced that many of its staff were to help out with MOH's lack of manpower.

However, Rafidah returned to flying in September this year. Ong said:

"I bumped into her again at the airport a few weeks ago while going to Hong Kong. She told me that contact tracing work may be challenging at times, but the experience was priceless. But she knows her first love has always been flying, and she is immensely proud to be donning her SIA kebaya again.

Planes were grounded, but her passion for flying remains."

Ong said that Rafidah's story, like many others who contributed to the fight against Covid, was one of "passion and resilience".

He added, "I told her that our job is to revive air travel and have her and her colleagues take to the skies again. #Changi will soar again, and so will SIA."

As health minister and the former transport minister, Ong was involved in both the containment measures against Covid and the struggles of Singapore's air sector in the wake of flight restrictions.

In September this year, after an improvement in the Covid situation, Singapore announced its first Vaccinated Travel Lanes (VTLs) with Germany and Brunei.

It then opened up more VTLs with other countries.

Although the emerging Omicron variant may yet put a dampener on flights, for now at least, Rafidah's story is an example that life is slowly returning to the beleaguered industry.

You can see the post below:

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