AEC is established to promote regional economic integration. Itsestablishment is expected to cover a huge market with $2. 6 trillion benefitting622 million people. Indeed, ASEAN was recorded as the third largest economy inAsia while ranked at the seventh in the world.
Meanwhile at thenon-state actor level, international cooperation between non-governmentalorganizations is significantly important too. Generally, the cooperation isaiming for enlarging and expanding the business to other countries. Internationalcooperation enables an organization to examine, to explore and involve in thearea as well as foreign market which they are not familiar with. For example, codeshare agreement in the aviation industry.
A codeshare agreement is theaviation arrangement when two or more airlines are using the same flight. Codeshare may exists under the following circumstances, (i) both airlines are flyingto the same route; (ii) when the flying destination is not covered by one ofthe involving airline company and (iii) connecting flight. For airlines, codeshare is beneficial as they can reduce the operational cost as only oneflight is needed instead of two since they are flying to the same destinations.
Therefore, codeshare is considered an example of international cooperation whenthe involved airlines are from different countries. In short, state andnon-state actors are significantly important in establishing internationalcooperation to achieve a common goal. The cooperation is not limited inpursuing political power. Indeed, formation of international cooperation isbelieved to bring prosper and contribute to sustainable economic growth.
3. 4 Case Study: Inter-ExcelAdvisory Sdn BhdSince the establishment of Inter Excel as a languageand training center in 1993, the company have been working hard on nurturingyoung generations to prepare them into work life. With the realization ofincreasing job opportunities in airline industry, the director decided tointroduce Airline Preparatory Course which managed to attract those who wereinterested to join the airline industry. Since then, Inter Excel became thetrusted brand in providing training to flight attendants and airport groundstaff. As the pioneer in flight attendant training inSoutheast Asia, developing human capital became one of the important tasks for theorganization.
Thus, Inter Excel introduced another diploma course from Europewhich is endorsed by Irish Aviation Authority (IAA). The diploma course is a higherqualification certificate as compared to FAPC. Due to the increasingcompetition in the job market, the Irish Diploma is an advantage to theteenagers who would like to join as flight attendant and airport ground staff. Asthe trusted training provider for flight attendants and airport ground staff, InterExcel managed to get the recognition from various local and internationalairlines as they are satisfied with the professionalism of the students. Thus, the international cooperation encourages Inter Excel to produce more skilledstudents to prepare them to work in the airlines and airports. As an experiencedflight attendant training provider, Inter Excel was appointed as the agent forflight attendant recruitment for Middle East-based airline.
Inter Excel wasresponsible for pre-recruitment procedures such as receiving resumes from localand international applicants andconducting pre-screening to determine the qualification of the candidatesbefore sending them to the final stage of recruitment by the airline companyofficials. The recruitment was running smoothly that Inter Excel received meritfrom the airline company for providing wonderful assistance in the recruitment. Apart from the MiddleEast-based airline, the airlines based in the neighboring Singapore appointedInter Excel as one of its agent for recruiting flight attendants. It has beenyears since the Singapore-based airlines conducted their recruitment at InterExcel. With its strong international cooperation with various internationalairlines and airports, some skilled and professional students are beingexported to join airline industry abroad. As Inter Excel isgrowing as one of the most successful cabin crew training providers, theorganization is facing a few threats and challenges when expanding thecooperation with various local and international airlines. Firstly, with thehigh turnover rate in the airline industry, Inter Excel is hardly producing sufficientqualified and skilled personnel as the number of students enrolled in thecourses are limited. For Inter Excel, quality of the students is the mainconcern of the training.
Therefore, less than 30 students are placing in aclass to ease the training process as the trainers can easily identify thestrength and weakness of each students. Furthermore, students have to completetheir studies at Inter Excel before serving under airlines although they havereceived job offers from airlines. There are times where the students of InterExcel are insufficient to join the airline interview sessions. Besides, limited capacityof the learning center are affecting the organization in producing more trainedand skilled personnel. Currently, Inter Excel is operating at three majorcities which are Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Johor Bahru. The classes at KualaLumpur is conducted in three rooms connecting to the Inter Excel office. Furthermore, as mock interview is one of the assessment criteria for airline trainingcourses, the office at Kuala Lumpur is not spacious to support the group ofstudents for mock interview. Therefore, they have to move to another place toconduct the assessment.
With the two challenges, solutions are needed in orderto cope with the existing problems. In the case of Inter Excel, the continuousinternational cooperation is significantly important. Currently, Malaysia isfacing serious unemployment.
According to the XXX, the unemployment in Malaysiais recorded at the rate of XXX. Annually, Malaysia’s job market is flooded withfresh graduates from various governmental and private universities andcolleges. At present, the available job opportunities are insufficient tosupport these degree or diploma holders. With the demand is lower than supplyin job market, a lot of professions is facing a condition of over-supply. Furthermore, the fresh graduates nowadays are very picky with the positions offered by theorganizations due to their academic qualification with further increase theunemployment rate in Malaysia.