Dubai: Hiring at Emirates, Flydubai in full swing, says top official

Hiring is back in full swing at Dubai’s top airlines, Emirates and Flydubai, a senior official said on Tuesday.

Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, chairman of Dubai Civil Aviation Authority and chairman and chief executive of Emirates Airline and Group, said staffing across various levels has been opened in the aviation sector — from cabin crew to other team members.

“We’ve been moving with our training facility at maximum capacity now…bringing people to be trained and certified. I would say this has reached over 80 per cent,” Sheikh Ahmed said during a roundtable discussion held on the sidelines of the ongoing Arabian Travel Market (ATM).

A pent-up demand has been driving the robust recovery of the travel and aviation industry, he added.

“I think people really want to see themselves travelling as they haven’t travelled in the past two years. They want to meet their relatives or travel for different purposes. People are coming here to do business and they are satisfied with the policies and that’s a positive sign that we see,” Sheikh Ahmed said. “We are trying to go back to pre-Covid times. This is something we are working hard on. We are also planning profits in 2023.”

With some countries still recovering from the pandemic and other crises, passenger numbers are yet to go back to how they were before Covid, the aviation chief said.

“Operations in those countries haven’t reached the optimum level yet. Additionally, there are issues related to the supply chain (plus the difficulties in) getting people back to work — these issues are everywhere. But slowly, I think we are coming back. I hope that by the end of the year, things would be much better and we would have a clearer picture,” he explained.

As Dubai sees rapidly increasing passenger numbers, Sheikh Ahmed is optimistic about what the next few months will bring.

“I hope that by the end of the year, we will be able to go up to a full capacity. We anticipate an increase in passenger numbers next year, and that is why the upgrade at Dubai International Airport (DXB) is happening this year and will end soon. We thought, ‘let’s finish the job this year and then we forget about it for the next 10 years’,” he said.

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With the Fifa World Cup Qatar drawing nearer, a travel rush is expected and Sheikh Ahmed is “hopeful that the spillover impact will be positive”.

“I am sure that Dubai should do very well because it has the hotel rooms to cater to different kinds of people. That would be something that would help Doha and the games, too. The hotels and the logistics people need to tap into Dubai and the facilities available here,” he added.

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