 |
| Image: Gabriele Petrauskaite |
Following the implementation of an ambitious business expansion scheme, Hungarian ultra-low-cost carrier Wizz Air has announced that it will be ramping up recruitment, with plans to hire 20,000 new employees by 2030.
Wizz Air is currently aiming to expand its fleet by 500 aircraft by the end of the decade and has said it will need to hire around 6,600 new pilots.
The news was confirmed during Pilot Expo 2022, Europe’s largest event for flight crew recruitment and training, which took place between May 7 and May 8, 2022, in Berlin, Germany. The carrier said that the 20,000 new recruits will be across both flight and cabin crew. Wizz Air currently employs 6,000 workers.
When asked about the exact number of pilots the airline aims to hire, Ewa Danecka-Latka, Head of Crew Resources of Wizz Air, said that flight crew members will account for around 33% or up to 6,600 of all new employees, while the remaining 13,400 vacancies are expected to be filled by flight attendants.
“The plan is to grow three times in just nine years and it is not just a dream, this is one of the KPIs that we have to deliver. For our recruitment team it means that we have to recruit one person every hour, which represents our goal of 2,000 new hires per year,” Danecka-Latka said.
“As we need a lot of new pilots and a lot of new cabin crew members joining our operations, this is what we are preparing ourselves for,” she added.
“Currently we have 42 bases all over the world and they are located in 18 countries. So, there is a huge number of locations that a pilot or a cabin crew member can be assigned,” Danecka-Latka explained.
Applicants aiming to join any of Wizz Air Holdings’ (WIZZ) subsidiaries, including Hungarian-based airline Wizz Air Hungary, British low-cost branch Wizz Air UK or its newest affiliate, Wizz Air Abu Dhabi, will operate a monogamous fleet of Airbus A320 family jets, such as Airbus A320ceos, A321ceos, A320neos, and A321neos. According to Wizz Air’s website, the carrier currently operates 153 planes.
However, according to Danecka-Latka, the airline is committed to tripling its fleet size in the future. With a capacity of 500 jets, Wizz Air plans to generate €15 billion yearly by the end of the decade.