Hong Kong Airlines announced on January 12, 2023 that it plans to hire 1,000 new employees across various roles, including pilots, cabin crew, and ground staff, by the end of the year. The carrier cited a “rapid recovery of air travel demand in sight” as the reason for the hiring increase.
According to the statement released by Hong Kong Airlines, the carrier plans to operate around 75% of its pre-pandemic capacity by the end of 2023 and expects to return to 100% of pre-pandemic capacity levels by mid-2024. The outlook also took into account the reopening of China’s border to international air travel, which is expected to contribute significantly to the airline’s travel recovery efforts.
The carrier plans to increase its flight operations to 30 sectors per day by January 2023, reaching 30% of pre-pandemic levels. The airline will be flying to 15 regional destinations including Tokyo, Osaka, Okinawa, Sapporo, Seoul, Bangkok, Manila, Hanoi, Taipei, Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Chengdu, and Haikou, which is 50% of the operation level before the pandemic.
Hong Kong Airlines estimates that it will need around 120 flight crew, 500 cabin crew, and 380 ground crew members to support the increase in operations. The company’s chairman, Hou Wei, stated that the airline has leveraged every travel recovery opportunity over the past few months amidst unprecedented pent-up demand, and the airline continues to see positive business growth, particularly from the Japanese markets.
