Thursday, 12 February 2015 12:48

Emirates hiring 11,000 new staff this year

Half of the recruits will be cabin crew

Emirates' staff pose on the airline's eighth A380, handed over yesterday at a special ceremony in Hamburg to mark Airbus’ 6,000th aircraft.

Dubai: Emirates Group is hiring more than 11,000 additional employees in the coming year as it gears up for an expansion drive and prepares to receive 20 new aircraft  over the next few months.

Hihglighting its growth plans, the company that runs Emirates Airline and dnata announced on Tuesday that the massive hiring will increase its staff size by six per cent by March next year.

Half of the new recruits will work as cabin crew, to be based out of Dubai. The others will fill positions to support the company's engineering, airport services and corporate functions.

Additional staff will also be assigned in dnata, which provides aviation and travel services in 90 cities across 38 countries.

Emirates, whose orderbook stands at more than 280 aircraft as of November, is one of the biggest employers in the Middle East, with 75,000 workers in its current payroll. More than 12,000 individuals have been with Emirates Group for over a decade, and almost 3,000 have worked with the company for over 20 years.
“More than anything, these facts illustrate the type of employer we are and the opportunities that we can offer,” said Abdulazia Al Ali, executive vice president for human resources, Emirates Airline Group.
The company receives a huge volume of applications regularly. Last year, nearly half a million online applications for more than 2,000 vacancies were received from over 227 countries.
Individuals seeking opportunities in the aviation industry also log an average of 1,500 job-related enquiries on the airline's social media channels every month.

The company had earlier scheduled invitation-only and open day cabin crew assessment events between February and March in India, Sri Lanka, Australia and many other destinations.

Emirates added last year at least 27 planes to its fleet, including 13 Airbus A380s and 12 Boeing 777-300ERs. The company takes pride in havin the industry's biggest wide-body passenger fleet of 218 aircraft, aside from 14 freighters.
Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways are also on a recruitment drive.