Emirates is seeking to hire 3,000 cabin crew members, alongside 500 ground workers at Dubai International Airport. The move comes as the airline continues its post-pandemic recovery, with the employees explicitly being targeted to aid its operations ramp-up.

Across the world, airlines are beginning to see the green shoots of recovery after the worst year and a half ever experienced by the industry. Emirates is no exception, with a quarter of the airline’s 119 strong Airbus A380 fleet already back in the blue skies and more jets to come. More people will be needed to ensure that these aircraft can fly.

Recruitment drive

Today, Emirates revealed that it would be launching a recruitment campaign to aid its operational resumption activities. Over the next half a year, the Dubai-based carrier aims to hire 3,500 new staff members to support its operations. The new employees will be required to cope with the increased traffic levels forecast over the coming years.

The majority of these roles will be flight-based, with 3,000 cabin crew members being sought. The remaining 500 positions will be for ground-based airport support employees. All functions are customer-facing, meaning that support employees will be in the terminal rather than on the ramp. Additionally, all of the roles will be located in Dubai, which is unsurprising for an airline based in the city.

The new hires will be in addition to stood down pilots, cabin crew, and ground operatives who were stood down last summer when the UAE government forced Emirates to halt all passenger operations.

Back to normality

Emirates has an awful long way to go before it reaches business as usual. For example, it is still only operating a quarter of its Airbus A380 fleet. Despite this, the airline is making good progress with its recovery.

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Over the past couple of months, we’ve had several indications that more flights are coming, and it seems as though October will be the start of a vast flight resumption program. For example, in the UK the airline hopes to operate its flagship route to London Heathrow six times a day, with four of these flights operated by the A380.

Additionally, the airline hopes to operate the giant of the skies on all four of its routes to Germany, with up to six A380 flights to the country each day. This week, Simple Flying also reported that the airline is set to launch the first scheduled commercial Airbus A380 service to Istanbul. Unfortunately, the airline can’t call it the first A380 flight to Istanbul, as Hi Fly’s charter A380 landed at the airport around a year ago on one of its last missions before retirement.

What do you make of Emirates’ recruitment drive? Let us know what you think and why in the comments below!