Tremendous need for new airline employees - Boeing - Curt Lewis

 

Boeing Sees Need for 30,850 New Pilots a Year as Travel Soars

Pilots sit in the cockpit of a Boeing 747-8 passenger aircraft. Photographer: Martin Leissl/Bloomberg

Global airlines will need to hire 30,850 pilots a year for the next two decades to keep pace with new planes on order and surging demand for air travel, according to a forecast by Boeing Co.

Carriers will need to recruit and train about 617,000 pilots to fly the 39,620 aircraft, valued at $5.9 trillion, that the U.S. planemaker expects to be added to the global fleet through 2035. The Asia-Pacific region will account for about 40 percent of total new hires as China eclipses North American as the largest travel market.

U.S. carriers will need to accelerate recruiting to replace pilots who are retiring, comply with stricter federal limits on duty hours and staff new routes to Cuba and Latin America, said Sherry Carbary, vice president of Boeing Flight Services.

The Chicago-based company predicts a need for 112,000 new pilots in North America over the next 20 years. Boeing sees 104,000 aviators required for Europe as travel continues to grow between countries on the continent, Carbary said.

The Middle East will need 58,000 pilots over the two decades, about 2,000 fewer than Boeing forecast a year ago, as flying within the region shifts to smaller models from very large aircraft like Airbus's A380 superjumbo.

Boeing expects airlines to hire more flight attendants Boeing declares need for over 1 million more airline employees. SEATTLE -- In the latest forecast of future airline jobs, Boeing expects the world's airlines to hire 814,000 flight attendants. This is the first time that cabin crew members have been added to the now seven-year-old forecast. Previously, Boeing has made forecasts for pilots and mechanics, saying over the next two years, globally speaking, airlines will need 679,000 technicians and 617,000 pilots -- raising its estimates for both categories around 11% over last year's forecast. The Asia-Pacific region, according to Boeing, will continue to lead with the most new jobs generated. But North America and Europe are also large generators of new airline jobs largely because of an upcoming wave of retirements, says Sherry Carbary, Boeing's Vice President for Flight Services with the company's airliner business. The creating of the officially named "Pilot and Technician Outlook" which now includes members of the cabin crew, comes decades after Boeing established the Current Market Outlook, or CMO for forecasted global sales of airliners regardless of manufacturer. The current Boeing CMO is calling for the sale of 39,620 planes over the next twenty years on the same basis as the personnel forecast, the years 2016 through 2035. One of the drivers behind the number of jobs is that the largest percentage of airplanes expected to be delivered to airlines are so called "single aisle" jets, which include the Boeing 737 and the Airbus 320. These are jet families which experience high rates of utilization, flying multiple flights in a single day requiring multiple teams of pilots and flight attendants. The exact numbers vary from airline to airline and country to country depending on business models and regulatory requirements.

AI to recruit 500 pilots, 1,500 cabin crew in next 2-3 yrs Air India may recruit about 500 pilots and over 1,500 cabin crew in next two to three years to meet the requirement as the fleet size is expected to increase considerably, a senior official has said. "We are planning to have 700 more pilots in the next two to three years keeping in view the fleet expansion. From last August till now, we have already recruited 250 pilots. So about 500 more pilots we are going to recruit. Advertisement for 400 pilots has already been floated," AI's General Manager (Operations) N Sivaramakirshnan told PTI. Last year, Air India had sought to recruit 200 trainee pilots (senior trainee pilot license holders who come with A320 endorsement). However, it could select only 78. Now all those pilots are flying on various routes, he said. Nearly 150 pilots are expected to complete their training by December this year. According to him, the present strength of pilots is 858 and the beleaguered airlines lost about 100 pilots during the last two years. "We have plans to have cabin crew of 3,000 personnel. Besides the existing number, we are planning to take 1,500 more in the next two to three years," he said. The official said Air India envisaged fleet expansion of another 100 aircraft in the next four years' time. On training facilities for pilots, the official said currently they have three simulators in Hyderabad and four in Mumbai. The simulators in Hyderabad belong to A320 while the four in Mumbai belong to Boeing family. "We are planning to order one more simulator for training on ATR aircraft in Hyderabad. RFI (Request for Information) has already been floated. By January next year we hope that it would be operational," he said, adding that the cost of the simulator would be about Rs 65 crore and an additional Rs 6 crore is needed for construction of building and other facilities for the ATR simulator. Though Air India does not have any ATRs in its fleet, services will be provided to its wholly-owned subsidiary 'Alliance Air'. - PTI