Etihad Airways open to recruiting Wizz Air Abu Dhabi employees, says CEO
'We're totally open (to hire Wizz Air Abu Dhabi employees). We need people. I'm sure that other airlines are also going to try it (to hire Wizz Air Abu Dhabi staff). This is business as usual,' Antonoaldo Neves, CEO of Etihad Airways, told Khaleej Times in an interview.
'We are hiring a lot. We're open to receiving any airline's resume. We recruit globally,' he said.
Around 450 Wizz Air Abu Dhabi employees are in limbo due to the suspension of operations, Bloomberg reported earlier.
Wizz Air CEO Jozsef Varadi offered Abu Dhabi employees the opportunity to take another job across the budget carrier's European network. But many employees will find it difficult to migrate to Europe, it reported.
The Abu Dhabi-based national carrier has been aggressively expanding its operations, recently announcing seven new routes in July, including Almaty, Kazakhstan; Baku, Azerbaijan; Bucharest, Romania; Medina, Saudi Arabia; Tbilisi, Georgia; Tashkent, Uzbekistan; and Yerevan, Armenia. It has launched or announced 27 new routes in a single year as part of its ambitious growth strategy.
2,500 employees in 2025
Neves was speaking after Etihad Airways took delivery of its first Airbus A321LR (long range) at the Airbus Finkenwerder site in Germany. It will receive these 30 new long-range aircraft over the next few years.
According to the Etihad chief, the airline will receive 22 aircraft this year, taking the total size of the fleet to around 200-220 over the next five years.
'This year, we're recruiting 2,500 people. We need to recruit from across the globe. We're going to hire about 350 pilots per year over the next five years and about 1,500 flight attendants every year. We're going to get to about 17,000-18,000 people,' he said.
It hired more than 2,000 new employees and promoted more than 1,500, primarily pilots and cabin crew, last year.
The fast-growing airline currently employs around 12,000 staff across various divisions.
The UAE airlines have been on a hiring spree in the post-pandemic period. Emirates Group, the parent company of Emirates airline, last week announced 17,300 openings in the current financial year.
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