We refer to Mr Sean Lim Wei Xin's letter, 'Why do SAF officers fly business class to exercises?'', published on 26 Nov 2019.

To cater for the large numbers of soldiers travelling overseas for exercises, competitive tenders for chartered flights provide the most cost efficient form of mass travel as they cost less than purchasing individual economy seats on commercial flights. Business class seats are not specified as a requirement in these tenders but some planes provided do include business class seats, at no added cost to the SAF. These were the business class seats referred to in Mr Lim's letter.

We thank Mr Lim for this opportunity to clarify.

Lee Chung Wei
Director Manpower
Ministry of Defence