Source: Eastern Institute of Technology – Tairāwhiti
4 mins ago
EIT graduates Emily Spackman (left), Hannah Cruzat (centre) and Neelam Dadrah.
Three EIT Tourism and Travel graduates who did their work experience with Air New Zealand at Hawke’s Bay Airport, are all working for the airline and credit the EIT programme for giving them the start they needed.
The New Zealand Diploma in Tourism and Travel [Level 5] is a one-year programme offered by EIT and follows on from the Level 3 and Level 4 certificates in Tourism and Travel.
Twenty-three-year-old Hannah Cruzat knew from a young age that she wanted to study tourism. She completed EIT’s Level 5 Diploma in Tourism last year and is thankful that the programme allowed her to develop her skills.
“I wanted to be trained by one of the airlines, so I am really grateful that I had the opportunity to get into Air New Zealand.”
Hannah now has a part-time job at the airline chaperoning unaccompanied minors on and off aircraft during school holidays. She is hoping to get full-time employment with Air New Zealand but in the meantime fills the rest of her time with casual work in a local restaurant.
“I really wanted to be a flight attendant, but when I had the work experience as part of the on-the-ground crew, it was a real eye-opener and I realised that this is what I wanted to do.”
Her work experience included customer service, helping passengers at the self-service check-in and bag drop-off among other things.
She credits this part of her Diploma as enabling her to get her current role with the airline.
With Hannah on her journey from EIT to Air New Zealand has been Emily Spackman, who also completed her Diploma in Tourism last year.
She says she decided to study at EIT after working at the Art Deco shop in Napier and dealing with passengers from the cruise ships in port. The EIT programme taught her communications and customer services skills, as well as showing what Hawke’s Bay’s tourism industry has to offer.
“A lot of what I’ve learnt through the programme helps me in my job. It kind of just tied it all together, which is good.”
For Emily, who is 20, the opportunity to do her work experience at Air New Zealand was too good to pass up. She now works on a casual basis as a customer service agent, dealing with check-in, bag drop and the gates.
