Dubai: Emirates airline is bringing back pilots who were sent on unpaid leave last year after the COVID-19 crisis led to the grounding of the airline’s flights. The carrier is bringing back “70 to 100” pilots a month to operate the A380 jumbo-jets, which are being deployed by Emirates on its busiest routes.
When it comes to the 777s, “we have almost everybody back there,” said Al Redha, adding that the airline will bring in more pilots to operate its A380s. “We are constrained with the number of trainees or the number of training sessions we can do on our simulator,” said Al Redha. “We are very cautious and closely monitoring the performance of these routes - if there are no big changes in protocols, we will continue to grow. we are on the upward trend of recovery”
Summer boost
The pilots are joining as Emirates deals with a busy summer schedule and it shows in the numbers as well. Emirates is seeing seat factors of 70 per cent across all of its routes – this goes up to a 100 per cent on some routes, according to Al Redha. With the “summer holidays coming, many people have taken their vacations and they're going back home for a short period”
Middle East countries such as Egypt and Jordan are high in demand, with routes such as Moscow, Thailand, Greece, and Malta also seeing high passenger traffic, said Al Redha.
