Last week, Emirates quietly postponed all cabin crew recruitment events due to be held throughout Italy as the COVID-19 Coronavirus outbreak gripped the country. But while many others airlines were announcing complete recruitment freezes, the Dubai-based Emirates continued to seek expat new hires and had nearly a hundred events lined up in cities around the world over the next couple of months.
That, however, has now changed as of Thursday after some dramatic changes in the way the Coronavirus crisis was developing around the world – notably the Middle East, North America and especially in Europe.
Emirates has now cancelled or indefinitely postponed all recruitment events no matter where they were due to be held in the world, including Assessment Day’s expected to go ahead in Dubai.
In an email sent to some attendee’s, the airline said the decision was a direct result of the “worldwide outbreak of COVID-19”. The email continued: “At Emirates, health and safety is our number one priority. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.”
The airline said it would get back in contact with attendee’s at the earliest opportunity but did not give an estimate of when that might be.
Some events planned today or tomorrow will go ahead as planned but from there it appears that Emirates is calling back its recruitment team to Dubai for the foreseeable. Events had been planned in 30 countries.
Emirates employs cabin crew from 160 countries and holds various recruitment events in cities worldwide. Some of these open days can attract hundreds of candidates vying to be selected, lining up for hours to hand over their resumes.
The airline said today that it would start thermal screening on all passengers headed to the United States and would carry out further testing on anyone who had an abnormal temperature. The announcement came the morning after President Trump enacted a travel ban on travellers from 27 European countries to the United States.
Emirates also said it would suspend its flight to Italy starting today. At the moment, the airline hopes to resume services to the country from April 3.
