The airline industry is suffering from a hiring freeze, according to travel recruiters.

As Virgin Atlantic announced it could cut up to 600 jobs last week, John Tolmie, director at AA Appointments, told Recruiter that the travel sector first ran into problems last year.

“The problems with the airlines started with the huge increase in price for oil. This severely affected profitability. This was swiftly followed by the credit crunch, leading to lower capacity, especially in business and first class.

“Virgin’s action is probably the beginning of widespread redundancies in the airline sector as most airlines try to cope with the drop in business traffic. Fortunately, oil prices are now much better so this will be a help. For those that find themselves redundant, there will be very few jobs for them to go for as most airlines now have some sort of recruitment freeze on.”

Ian Brooks, director at Gail Kenny Executive Search, adds: “What is really causing pain to the long-haul carriers is a sharp downturn in business travellers. Revenues from their premium cabins make up disproportionately high levels and this is causing most of the financial pain.

“Costs have to be cut and jobs are part of the mix. I would envisage a reduction in jobs across a broad basis of the business, including head office and operational staff.  Workers may need to look to other sectors for jobs, as aviation is unlikely to be recruiting for theremainder of 2009.”

Nina Johnson-Bennett, managing director at Management Search Executive, says airlines are bidding to create sustainability due to the lack of take-up on seats.
 
“Highly qualified, multi-skilled, flexible and customer focused workers are in demand. Companies would be wise to assess the calibre of each employee and where lacking be ready to replace and upgrade.

“Despite the constraints of unionisation within the airlines, it is only common sense that where there is a downturn in business the management must take stringent steps to prevent loss of revenue. The state of the economy is everyone’s concern and not only that of the paymasters.”