With international travel beginning to pick up, British Airways is preparing for the anticipated growth in demand next summer.
It will add more pilots, ground staff, back-office staff as well as cabin crew, increasing its headcount by almost 15 per cent.
The news of the recruitment plans were revealed by Sean Doyle, CEO, British Airways, during the first London-New York flight, post lifting of travel restrictions.
The hiring will reverse the job cuts that took place as a result of the pandemic-induced slump in the aviation sector.
The parent company of British Airways, IAG, plans to increase passenger capacity to about 60 per cent of its 2019 capacity.
Meanwhile, Emirates has posted dozens of vacancies on its website. It is looking to hire cabin crew, HR professionals, administrative staff, airport service agents , accounts professionals as well as healthcare staff.
Emirates offers tax-free remuneration packages along with employee discounts on flights and hotel accommodations around the world.
PilotsGlobal, the US-based digital platform that helps pilots around the world find jobs with global airlines, predicts that the Middle East will face a shortage of pilots in 2023, due to the scarcity of local talent to fly the aircraft of the region.
According to the platform’s predictions, the Middle East will need approximately 15,800 pilots over the next two years, and about 28,000 pilots in a decade’s time. Boeing had earlier predicted that by 2040 the region will require about 54,000 pilots.