Swiss International Air Lines has started to recruit new flight attendants despite the continuing “financial impact” of the pandemic on its business because so many crew members left the airline when it introduced a mandatory COVID-19vaccination policy.
Like many airlines, Swiss was forced to make some staff redundant at the outset of the pandemic while it put many others onto short-term working arrangements to share the small amount of available workaround.
But the carrier has also seen more crew leave than originally anticipated, in part because of voluntary early retirements and higher than expected staff turnover but also because of the airline’s controversial mandatory vaccination programme.
Swiss announced the mandatory vaccination policy last August and gave pilots and cabin crew until November 15, 2021, to get vaccinated or risk losing their jobs.
The airline has not said how many crew members failed to get vaccinated in time for the deadline or how many employees were forced to leave as a result because of strict privacy laws.
Aside from the health benefits of vaccination, Swiss admitted that it was making it compulsory for crew members to get vaccinated because an increasing number of countries were making it a condition of entry. The airline feared it might have to cancel flights if not enough vaccinated crew were available.
“To meet its projected staffing needs, SWISS will be recruiting new cabin crew members in the triple-digit range in the course of this year,” the airline announced on Tuesday.
“We’re really pleased that we’ll be creating many jobs again and welcoming these new colleagues aboard,” commented Head of Cabin Crew Reto Schmid.
As well as recruiting new cabin crew, the airline is also rehiring some crew who were made redundant – all of whom are obviously vaccinated against COVID-19. Some of the newest recruits who were working at Swiss when the pandemic first hit were offered a one-off payment of 1,000 Swiss Francs (USD $1,050) for them to quit their dream job rather than being forcibly laid off.
