It’s been an agonising wait. Last December, Emirates held its last Cabin Crew recruitment Open Day but in reality, the airline stopped hiring new cabin crew many months before. Successful candidates, who attended Open Day’s and Assessment Day’s in the second half of 2017 were later informed their applications had ‘expired’ and would have to reapply once Emirates started recruitment again.
But when will recruitment restart? It’s a difficult question to answer and one that we know causes a lot of pain for aspiring cabin crew who desperately want the chance to join Emirates.
Dates and deadlines, based on information from Emirates insiders have come and gone without a hint of the airline opening up the recruitment process. We were initially told it would be June or July, then September or October. Later, we were told it would definitely be by the end of the year.
With all this conflicting and often incorrect information flying around its hardly surprising people have become weary of the rumours. Most of those rumours, however, have been said in good faith – based on internal Emirates predictions of when ab initio new recruit training will start.
Based on what our sources had told us, we believed recruitment would restart by the end of the year. Possibly in October or November 2017. That would allow a recruitment phase of 3-4 months with ab initio courses starting in March or April.
Unfortunately, based on the latest developments we’re sceptical this will happen. The main reason is our previously reported news that Business Class crew will start ‘working down’ a grade. Crew will be required to work in the Economy cabin for a month at a time – selection will be based on a number of criteria.
The programme will start in November and so far, Emirates hasn’t given any indication of how long it will last. In recent months the Economy Class cabin has become understaffed with many cabin crew coming to the end of their contracts. Others are considering leaving the airline due to a lack of promotion opportunities.
We thought this would lead to a new recruitment drive but instead, Emirates have decided to ‘backfill’ open positions from higher grade crew. We’ve even learnt that pursers and onboard supervisors can volunteer to work in Economy.
On top of that, Emirates has just started a ‘service refresher’ training programme for existing cabin crew. This is seen by many inside the airline as a way of preparing cabin crew for cross-working between cabins – in order to better utilise their existing workforce.
The programme will also put the training college and trainers to good use whilst ab initio courses are still suspended.
Based on this information, we believe cabin crew recruitment won’t restart until the first few months of 2018 at the earliest. What do you think? Do you think we’re right or completely wrong – let us know your opinion by taking part in the poll below. And don’t forget to sound off in the comments below…
Of course, we could be absolutely wrong. Even our most trusted sources admit that so far, the decisions made by senior managers have surprised them. For all we know, another big surprise could come at any time.
Here’s hoping that surprise will be the start of cabin crew recruitment – sooner rather than later. It could well happen – Etihad has just announced two new Assessment Day’s to be held in December – just months after suspending their recruitment process.
