Woman of the Month – Achara Roonkati (Jenny) – Air France KLM

Hello DBWT team, I sincerely appreciate your interview invitation as well.  I am delighted to introduce myself briefly as a current Account Manager with Air France KLM based in Thailand. My main responsibility is to manage and grow opportunity & profitability in terms of corporate and trade agents in Thailand market, and  I just was appointed to develop business in Cambodia this year too. Because of my passion in travelling around the world and keen to learn various cultures, languages & foods, I decided to work in the aviation industry. I would say that I really love my job so much.

As I mentioned earlier, Air France KLM offers me a fun & dynamic job so that I can always explore new experiences. For example, duty trips in various countries in SEAO & Europe. This career I can meet new people in many industries, collaborate closely with a lot of companies in terms of global, regional and SME segmentations. Moreover, it is more enjoyable when to learn interesting new culture through different points of view so that I can open up new vistas. I would say that when you look inside yourself and seek your true need what you want to do in ONE life so you will find the bright way bringing you there. No matter what challenges you are facing during the crisis time, you will get up with fresh energy to overcome it because of the one reason: You do what you love and your life is a result of your choices!

I have joined Air France KLM since 2020 or during Covid pandemic. You could imagine that travelling and driving sales during the hectic crisis time was quite challenging. The challenge you were facing was about capacity limitation due to each country restriction imposed strictly versus continually huge increasing numbers of Covid infection in globe. Referring to W. Churchill said “Don’t waste a good crisis”, it made me re-consider the way we think & work and stay alert for CHANGE all the times. For example, I always applied agility and resilience on country travel regulations changing regularly and rapidly, so that I could help my passengers get back home safely and supported other important business trips to go smoothly based on safety & health. I did turn crisis points into opportunity by collaborating closely with respective embassies & chambers & clients of all segmentations. With their fantastic support, I, Air France KLM Thailand could strive to overcome this crisis together. Protecting customers’ and employees’ health and keeping them safe while flying on Air France KLM is our top priority that we commit to each and every day.

I still do believe that every job in the airline and tourism industry is so meaningful for our globe and society. We are the bridge to connect people, economies and cultures, as well as boost economic growth and social progress. That is our beautiful job contributed to them. Please do not give up on what you love. When you feel down, please do remember your memorable stories or people you have helped  to meet their traveling goal and you are part of their satisfied experiences.

I do maintain my motivation by having growth mindset, clear goal-setting, self-discipline.

For driving a competitive sales environment, I do believe that in every market & industry, you face competition but you just make sure you will make the difference. If you know what the customer wants, needs, expects so you might be able to offer something that actually customers buy. If customers trust you, they will do a business with you!

I would say that my easy tips are to have growth mindset, clear goal-setting, self-discipline, agility, resilience, humbleness and teamwork.

Air France KLM firmly believes that an effective policy of diversity and inclusion is key to the well-being of employees within the company and has a positive impact on the performance of the organization. The Group is thus committed to combatting all forms of discrimination and promoting equal opportunity. The professional integration of young people, and recruitment of persons with disabilities are also part of our daily priorities.

Respectively in 2019 and 2021, Air France and KLM signed the association L’Autre Cercle’s LGBT+ Commitment Charter and the Amsterdam Workplace Pride Declaration. The latter aim to develop a working environment in which openness and equality are fundamental, and where there exists an explicit awareness of diversity, inclusion and the LGBTIQ+ community.

In terms of Air France KLM, we are proud to offer exclusive features such as Air France Play and the purchase of tickets directly via the social networks of our brands, which now have nearly 34 million fans and followers in total. 

Additionally, on Valentine’s Day, we offered our customers, fans and followers a personalized experience with the help of OpenAI’s advanced language model, ChatGPT. KLM is the first airline to use ChatGPT as part of a communication campaign. The campaign generated many positive reactions and achieved great results – 2.5 million people saw the campaign and 32,500 people visited the landing page to write a love letter. KLM is excited to further explore the application and possibilities of ChatGPT in their customer contact.

“Reading books” is my favorite hobby and it helps shifting me to another world, which inspires different ideas and new points of view.

Good balance between work and life is my major reason for selecting my job and Air France KLM fullfill this to me and my family. They offer employees a hybrid working policy. For me, work life balance is the key to leverage employee experience, and respect and trust between a company and an employee. That can happen easily without any fixed formulars.

Believe in yourself that you can do it, this will be your super hidden power!

I like this quote and always remind myself because Covid pandemic taught me that our life is short and time flies so fast, you have one life so do what you love and act now.