Thank you very much bossman! There was a lot of confusion from my budding aviator friends on what SIA wants and doesn't want.
For one thing, there was a misconception that SIA ONLY prefers people who come in fresh with 0 hours
Looks like they readily accept those with self-sponsored outside Singapore routes too. That's good to hear.
I encourage personally EACH AND EVERY POTENTIAL CADET to go out there and do a cheap PPL in US or Australia or something just to personally see if this is what you see yourself doing and whether you are prepared for it.
As far as I am concerned, if you can pass a rigorous and proper PPL program, you can get an ATPL.
Yes SIA do take in those with CPL/IR. And recently the airline accepted CPL/IR from CASA, FAA, DCAM, UKCAA, Thailand, etc. But I wanna remind those out there... having a licence is not a guarantee straight-in approach. You still have to go through the interviews, which in some cases may be even more rigorous due to the attained knowledge. There have also been cases of CPL/IR holders having their training terminated at SIA.
By the way, is a "cheap PPL" = "rigorous and proper PPL program"??
Somehow I don't quite agree that anyone that can fly a single-engine VFR on his PPL can easily upgrade his skill to a CPL/ME/IR according to airline's strict training standards. I suppose it's easy for you to say because you already went through the training, but not everyone is up to it.