UK airlines and airports scramble to hire staff as travel takes off again

theguardian.com:

Are you unfazed by heights, able to swim, not visibly tattooed, either taller than 5 ft 2in or possessed of extraordinarily long arms, and able to survive on £16k basic a year? Then there is a pretty good chance an airline needs you.

Cabin crew are just a few of the roles the aviation sector has been desperately trying to fill after the bounceback from Covid. Employees were axed en masse as the pandemic hit and flights were grounded, with British Airways alone shedding 10,000 people.

Now those aviation businesses that cut to the bone have been unable to recruit fast enough after the government suddenly lifted all travel restrictions in March, fuelling a surge in bookings.

At the more glamorous end of aviation, there is still no shortage of applicants: BA is holding wings ceremonies, where newly qualified cabin crew are given their silver winged badges, almost daily.

Natasha Dicks, 21, of Swindon, is one of those who made it through, working her first flight from Heathrow to Edinburgh earlier this month. She first applied in 2019, but was put on hold when Covid arrived, and went to work in the hotel business instead. This time, BA called her.

Five-and-a-half weeks of training included simulating emergency evacuations – “People were shouting, who are you, what are you? I didn’t have time to put on my yellow tabard and they thought I was a pretend passenger” – before Dicks and her cohort of 12 trainees got their wings, in front of friends and family, in BA’s museum at its Waterside HQ at Heathrow.

For her, the long wait was worth it: “It’s my dream job – I’ve always wanted to do this.” But other parts of aviation are beginning to realise that loyal staff are hard to come by – particularly in the more thankless tasks such as