Qantas, the national airline of Australia, is on a hiring rampage, with short-term goals of 2,300 additional pilots, flight attendants, and engineers, and long-term goals of 30,000 front-line employees over the next ten years. Chief Executive Alan Joyce stated on Friday that Qantas was now looking ahead to the next decade and beyond for its recruitment needs as the carrier continues to recover from the pandemic’s consequences.
“We order aircraft up to 10 years in advance, so we need to think similarly long-term about the people and skills we need to operate them,” Joyce commented. “Over that period of time, we’ll create an estimated 8,500 new aviation jobs in Australia, and most of those jobs require years of training.” “In the near term, we’re gearing up to meet the growth in all of the markets we serve. We have more aircraft arriving every month, and that means we need more pilots, engineers, cabin crew, and others,” Joyce continued.
A new training center in Longreach will host up to 150 cabin crew members each day as part of the airline’s ambitious expansion plans. While Qantas anticipates a 50%+ increase in cabin crew training sessions compared to pre-pandemic, new hire cabin staff now receive roughly 240 hours of training in their first six months of employment.
But, Qantas will have to rely on a fleet of 22 wet-leased aircraft chartered from third-party airlines to fill gaps in leisure travel, freight, and the resources industry while it is busy hiring and training its new generation of pilots and cabin crew.