Market Intelligence: -Airline Hiring

American Airlines says it will need 1,350 pilots by 2022 as it ramps up hiring demands

American Airlines hopes to hire as many as 1,350 pilots by the end of 2022 as demand ramps up coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fort Worth-based American Airlines told employees Wednesday that it hopes to bring on 350 more new pilots this year, adding 50 new employees to its plan to hire 300 by the end of 2021. And in 2022, the company plans to hire 1,000 aviators, increasing from its previous projection to add 600 pilots.

“Though we were limited in pilot growth this past year, we are now moving full speed ahead with plans to continue recruiting, hiring and training the best and most diverse pilots in the business,” American’s vice president of flight Chip Long said in an email to employees Wednesday.

As of 2019, the average American Airlines pilot made $238,000 in salary and benefits, according to the MIT Airline Data Project.

American will report a projected $1.1 billion second-quarter loss on Thursday and has spent more than a year making constant adjustments to its schedules, network and workforce as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to shape the airline industry.

More than 16 months after COVID-19 was declared a worldwide health emergency, demand is now nearly back to pre-pandemic levels and airports and planes are nearly full, even though airlines are still flying fewer flights than they did in 2019. Airlines hope to change that through the end of 2021 and into next year.

“As an airline, our revenue and expense performance for the quarter came in better than expected,” Long said in the email. “As an industry, travel demand is returning.”

Airlines across the country are now scrambling to find pilots after major cutbacks since the beginning of 2021. American Airlines lost about 1,000 pilots to early retirements through various buyout packages over the last year and a half. Those buyouts were aimed at reducing payroll costs while airlines hemorrhaged cash. But now that demand is recovering, airlines need pilots to ferry a growing number of passengers.

“Though the numbers aren’t at 2019 levels and the demand itself looks different right now, it’s the path to recovery we’ve all be focused on,” Long said.

American Airlines also has about 1,000 pilots out on leave who were furloughed during the COVID-19 pandemic and are being trained to get back into the air.

Dallas-based Southwest Airlines has told employees that it plans to hire 120 new pilots in 2021. Southwest posted those jobs last week and plans to leave the jobs open until Aug. 1.

“Southwest does expect to hire pilots in 2022; however, we don’t have any numbers to confirm today,” said Southwest Airlines spokesman Brian Parrish in an email.

Source: The Dallas Morning News

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How quickly things have changed for the US Airlines and the Pilot requirement

The sudden shift of demands for air transportation and pilots continues to manifest. Such can be seen  through the following texts excerpted from a published article of Marketplace.org on the 16th of July 2021.

“It wasn’t that many months ago that American Airlines Capt. Dennis Tajer was flying 737s with just four or five people on board.

‘Now today I’m flying with every seat filled,’ Tajer said. ‘Just flew yesterday. Full airplanes everywhere, airports packed. That’s the great news.’

‘The not-so-great news, he said, is that there aren’t nearly enough pilots or crew to fly those planes.’

‘It went from a lack of demand from passengers to a lack of supply for pilots overnight, like a light switch,’ Tajer said.

‘And there’s no similar switch that airlines can flip to replenish that supply of pilots.’

‘The challenge is that you know, creating a pilot and bringing a pilot back isn’t something that’s instantaneous, right?’ said Simon Azar of CAE, a company that makes flight simulators and trains pilots. ‘If you want to create a pilot from scratch, it takes two to three years to be able to get them into an airline seat.’

Source: Marketplace

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US Airlines rush to train pilots as flight demands continue to rise

As manifested by the US airlines’ head with CNBC through an interview. The article from CNBC is quoted as follows: “Some of airlines’ most in-demand flights this summer don’t even leave the ground.

Flight simulators from Atlanta to Dallas to Miami and elsewhere are humming as airlines scramble to get hundreds of pilots trained to meet a surge in bookings that kicked off this spring as vaccinations rolled out and Covid-era restrictions eased.

Domestic leisure travel has recovered to 2019 levels, while business travel is also rebounding, airline executives said this month.

Airlines have received $54 billion in federal aid since March 2020 in exchange for not laying off workers. But voluntary departures, changed fleets and the rapid rise in travel demand have created a need for pilot training that industry experts say is without parallel. Reduced flight schedules also meant pilots weren’t getting in their minimum takeoffs and landings required to maintain their flying status. Training pilots on new aircraft can take weeks while annual retraining can take a few days.

‘What is unique about this experience is the drop-off in business [early in the pandemic] was an existential threat to the business,’ said Bryan Terry, managing director and global aviation leader at Deloitte. “Then what came, the unexpected part, the return to travel came faster than expected.”

That ‘puts a very tight timeline’ on the pilot training, he added.”

Source: Texts are excerpted from CNBC / Leslie Josephs

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American Airlines cancels voluntary leaves of about 3300 flight attendants

  • American is canceling voluntary leaves of 3,300 flight attendants, calling them back by the end of the year.
  • Bookings, led by domestic leisure travel, surged over the late spring and early summer, and now carriers are scrambling to increase staffing.
  • Getting employees who have been on leave or haven’t been actively working can be challenging and time-consuming.
  • Two-thirds of American’s flight attendants on leave will need to be retrained before they can fly, Byrnes said.
  • American, Southwest Airlines, Delta Air Lines and other carriers have been busy training hundreds of pilots who have been called back to work, a process that can take more than a month in some cases.
  • Those carriers as well as United Airlines and Spirit have announced plans to hire additional pilots to keep up with what executives expect to be robust demand next year.

Source: Texts excerpted from CNBC / Leslie Josephs / July 15, 2021

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Emirates Welcomes 70-100 Pilots Returning Every Month as Airbus A380 Operations Resumes On Certain Routes

Emirates’ Pilots who were put on leave due to the Covid-19 pandemic are now being brought back to the airline, averaging to about 70-100 per month. The airline is now gearing up for the increasing demand for air travel and resumes operations of the Airbus A380.

According to Simple Flying, some of the upcoming plans of Emirates for its fleet of A380 include a return to Sydney and Melbourne later this year and to Mauritius in August. There are plans to fly the A380 to Australia by this coming December, but there is no indication as to whether a return to Brisbane and Perth is possible or not.

Emirates, for its July schedule for the A380, will operate on 16 routes. Seven (7) destinations have been recently added including Rome, Los Angeles, Toronto, and Munich.

For more information, kindly contact Emirates.

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Ryanair Announces 2,000 New Pilot Jobs

Ryanair, Europe’s No. 1 airline, today (12th July) announced a recruitment drive for 2,000 new pilots to crew aircraft deliveries over the next 3 years as Ryanair recovers and rebuilds from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ryanair has now taken delivery of its first Boeing 737-8200 Gamechanger aircraft, which help Ryanair lower costs, cut fuel consumption and lower noise and CO2 emissions. This investment in new aircraft arriving through the recovery phase of the Covid-19 Pandemic deepens Ryanair’s environmental commitment as Europe’s greenest, cleanest major airline and also creates these exciting opportunities for experienced and aspiring pilots to secure the best pilot jobs in aviation. Ryanair Pilots enjoy great pay, industry leading five on, four off rosters, outstanding career development and world class training. As part of Ryanair’s career development initiatives, most Captain vacancies created by these new aircraft deliveries will be filled by internal promotions which creates opportunities for replacement First Officers, and ultimately new cadet pilots who can kickstart their pilot career with Ryanair so they can grow into the next generation of Ryanair’s First Officers and Captains.

Training courses take place through 2021 to be ready for Summer 2022 for positions all over Europe. Ryanair has partnered with Airline Flight Academy in Dublin to deliver Boeing 737 Training Courses as part of this recruitment drive. Aspiring pilots can also check out careers.ryanair.com/pilots for details of Ryanair Mentored training programmes.

Ryanair’s People Director Darrell Hughes said:  

“As we take delivery of more than 210 Boeing 737-8200 gamechanger aircraft, Ryanair will recruit 2,000+ pilots over the next 3 years to fill positions created by this growth. This is great news for experienced and aspiring pilots but also for our own pilots who will enjoy fast tracked promotions. Throughout the pandemic, Ryanair has worked closely with our people to save jobs and we are delighted to start planning for a return to growth over the coming years as we recover from the Covid-19 crisis and grow to 200m guests by FY2026’’.

Source: Ryanair Press Release. See here.

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Singapore Airlines set to dominate among its Southeast Asian rivals

An analysis published by Reuters on the 9th of July provides the current scene with Singapore Airlines as it dominates through the Southeast Asian region. The following texts are excerpted from the analysis.

“Singapore Airlines Ltd (SIA), flush with $16 billion raised since the start of the pandemic thanks to help from a state investor, is in a position of dominance among its Southeast Asian rivals as they downsize and restructure.”

“Its majority shareholder, government-owned investment arm Temasek Holdings (TEM.UL) underwrote one of the world’s biggest airline rescue packages. Thanks to that, SIA’s has enough funds to keep going for at least two more years without cuts, and is modernising its fleet to save fuel, reduce maintenance costs and meet environmental goals while other airlines shed aircraft.”

“Many of SIA’s rivals are trimming fleets to a level that could ultimately weaken their hubs and send more connecting traffic to Singapore.”

“But analysts say it could take 12 to 18 months for widespread travel to resume in Asia.”

“SIA deferred S$4 billion of spending on new planes over three years after reaching agreements with manufacturers Airbus SE and Boeing Co.”

“But because of large pre-crisis orders, it is still spending S$3.7 billion on new aircraft and adding at least 19 planes to its fleet this year, including 13 widebodies, despite little demand.”

Source: Reuters

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Emirates is bringing back ’70-100′ furloughed pilots every month, says Chief Operating Officer and is constrained by training capacity

  • Emirates airline is bringing back pilots who were sent on unpaid leave last year after the COVID-19 crisis led to the grounding of the airline’s flights.
  • The carrier is bringing back “70 to 100” pilots a month to operate the A30 jumbo-jets, which are being deployed by Emirates on its busiest routes.
  • When it comes to the 777s, “we have almost everybody back there,” said Al Redha, adding that the airline will bring in more pilots to operate its A380s.
  • “We are constrained with the number of trainees or the number of training sessions we can do on our simulator,” said Al Redha.
  • Summer boost; Emirates is seeing seat factors of 70 per cent across all of its routes – this goes up to a 100 per cent on some routes, according to Al Redha.

For more information, kindly contact Emirates.

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Emirates Airline chief Tim Clark expects return to ‘full capacity’ by summer of 2022

Through an interview by Arab News with Emirates Airline chief Tim Clark, the latter anticipates that Emirates will resume to full capacity by summer of 2022. “Taking the short-term view, I think we’ve got another six months of difficulty. If you ask me about the summer of 2022, I’m fairly confident that next year we’ll see a completely different picture, and that certainly airlines like Emirates will have restored themselves to full capacity, albeit possibly six months later than we originally thought,” he said.

“Dubai will reassert itself as a global super hub. It’ll strengthen that. The airport will strengthen, and we’ll have more cities on the network within the next three to five years. So just watch this space,” he added.

Source: Texts are excerpted from Arab News / Frank Kane

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