Ambitious recruitment plans for Air France

Due to growth in Air France activity and staff retirements, more pilots are being recruited and trained. Following on from an annual recruitment rate of 130 pilots between 2003 and 2006, Air France recruited 260 pilots in 2007 and will recruit close to 300 more pilots in 2008 and 2009.

The airline is offering pilots interested in joining the airline career prospects, a wide range of aircraft families (including the Airbus A380, for which Air France is the European launch carrier) and a large variety of networks that few other airlines can offer.

Air France’s offer is a most attractive one.

Air France selected the 260 pilots needed in 2007 without any particular difficulty and at the present time, the airline does not foresee any difficulties in recruiting another 300 pilots in 2008 and 2009.

Air France has a “stock” of 950 applications from trained professional pilots. Each year, Air France receives more than 1,300 applications from people interested in its internal pilot training program (young pilots). Air France also recruits military pilots and welcomes pilots who have worked for its regional subsidiaries. In all, Air France has a reserve list comprising over 2,300 applications, including more than 1,000 professional pilots.

The airline set itself the ambitious challenge of doubling its number of recruitments and had to resize team and training resources over the past few months in order to achieve this aim.

In terms of training, just over 1,000 pilots follow a training program dedicated to a new aircraft type each year. This figure surpasses that registered between 2003 and 2006 (700 per year) but is comparable with that of 2000 or 2001.