Senior executives at Emirates have finally laid out plans to restart recruitment for cabin crew at the Dubai-based airline. It’s been well over a year since Emirates last held a cabin crew recruitment event, with the last Open Day’s taking place in December 2016. Since then, we’ve heard plenty of rumours but very little concrete information from the airline itself.
Well now, in a leaked internal memo, Emirates’ chief operations officer, Adel Al Redha has told serving crew that they “will soon start recruiting cabin crew.” Sadly, Redha didn’t elaborate on what “soon” actually meant but expect some movement in the next few months – if not sooner.
Emirates was forced to slow ambitious growth plans in 2016/2017 when a number of events conspired to eat away at the airline’s profits – the airline’s President, Tim Clark described that year as “brutal”. We’ve since seen Emirates make drastic cutbacks as it responds to big changes throughout the aviation industry and once such area that took a brunt of those cutbacks was the cabin crew community.
We recently published an insiders account of what life is like at the airline – describing her working life as a “nightmare”, our source told us that morale had never been so low. Medical benefits have been slashed, accommodation has been cut back and no one has seen a pay rise in over year.
Redha, however, has been keen to address a chorus of cabin crew discontent and has told staff he is listening to feedback. The airline promises it is reviewing a number of suggestions made by cabin crew to improve morale and make life at the airline better.
As a strictly hierarchal airline, cabin crew who were hired as Economy Class crew over three years ago are still working in that same cabin – a position that Redha says will now change for “some grades.”
The possibility of recruitment restarting at Emirates will be welcomed by many – especially when one rumour suggested the airline wouldn’t be hiring new staff until December 2018 at the earliest.
When recruitment does restart, Emirates will be trialling a new application process – instead of holding Open Day’s, candidates will have to submit an online application. Shortlisted candidates will then be called to attend an Assessment Day – much like Etihad’s process.
More information can be found here.
Of course, this news still leaves many unanswered questions and Emirates hasn’t yet made any public statement on the matter.
