The commercial aviation sector has been somewhat caught off guard by the sheer numbers in which tourists have returned this summer, with chaotic scenes as Dublin Airport struggled to handle crowds and London Heathrow set to cap passenger numbers until October.
As with many other industries, staffing has been an issue, and according to John Farrelly, owner and managing director of Propeller Recruitment, demand for business-critical roles in aviation is higher than ever,
Ryanair is now operating 3,000 flights per week, a 15% increase on the same period of 2019, while airlines such as EasyJet and Turkish Airlines are also close to or have exceeded their pre-Covid capacity.
Overall, an average of more than 30,000 daily flights equates to 87.3% of 2019 levels, and intra-European traffic is now at 90% of 2019 levels, showing just how rapid the turnaround has been, with airlines having previously forecast that traffic would not return to pre-Covid levels until next year.
At the outset of the pandemic Farrelly – who has worked in recruitment for 14 years and headed up the aviation divisions at Sigmar Recruitment before starting Propeller in 2018 – switched his focus from commercial aviation to cargo carriers, sensing how vital cargo flights and the wider supply chain would become in the midst of the global crisis.
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Propeller invested heavily in airline data so that they monitor trends acutely and take advantage of what Farrelly described as the “main growth area in the industry”, reasoning that airlines have “the best employer brand” in the sector and people are keen to work for them.
The company uses the CH Aviation software for airline intelligence and the Vincere applicant tracking system for its day-to-day operations, and Farrelly says the company has seen a really strong return on investment after putting money into its LinkedIn presence.
“As a business, agility has always been something that is intrinsic to how we run things. Pivoting to cargo carriers didn’t really present a challenge. In terms of the recruitment process, recruiting for a cargo carrier is no different than a passenger carrier, effectively.
“We haven’t stopped working with those clients – they’re brilliant airlines to work with. Over 90% of roles we fill are through a targeted search. The very best people don’t apply for jobs … so running a service and building a network and other things we do to attract the very best people to apply to cargo and passenger services, and we’ve continued to support both.”
Propeller specialises in start-up airlines, but doesn’t help to hire pilots and cabin crews, instead finding executives and ground crews (maintenance, engineering), and business-side staff in operations and compliance, generally at mid to senior level.
The company has worked with Irish airlines establishing arms in the UK to insulate themselves from Brexit, but Farrelly is most focused on Arajet, a low-cost start-up airline based in the Dominican Republic, and the wider Latin American region at the minute.
“A driver for a lot of start-up airlines is opportunity,” he explains. “First of all, aircraft are cheaper than they were pre-pandemic, both leasing and purchasing aircraft, so there’s an opportunity to keep costs relatively low, and demand is surging at the moment globally.”
Demand for Propeller’s services has been “intense” in recent months with a number of major airlines in Ireland, the UK and the EU seeking to hire the company, but the South American and Caribbean markets have seen an even quicker return in demand.
“The industry has a tremendous talent pool in Latin America. As we invest in the very best recruitment software, we have the ability to contact the very best candidates in the industry, regardless of location, and that's been a brilliant project and a part of the world that we haven't recruited in before, which has taken a significant amount of our time as we recruited managers and vice presidents.
“And they've got very ambitious growth plans going forward, so we'll continue to do that and delve a little bit for the Latin American market while supporting the airline clients that we have here in Ireland, the UK, Europe, and the Middle East.”
Of the challenges being faced by major European airports at present, Farrelly said that in June 85% of Dublin Airport departures were late and 1.4% of flights were cancelled.
“Context is very important, and a good starting point to ease the staffing issues is to improve the terms and conditions of the people working at the airport and also find a way to bring back skilled people who have left the industry, of which job security is a high priority.
“In this country, and again it’s replicated globally, we just lost some brilliant people in the aviation industry to the pharmaceutical industry … and bringing those people back will be a major challenge,” he said, adding that pharma, as another highly regulated industry, was keen to attract people with legal and regulatory compliance expertise.
“Security staff, baggage handlers – if you’re recruiting them, people need to be trained up; it takes time. All the airports are suffering because the surge in demand has been incredible. I’ve never seen recruitment demand like it in the first six months, and I don’t think I’ll ever see it again.
He went on to underline that terms and conditions were important to ending the recruitment struggles, saying that people needed to be compensated fairly, especially in light of the cost of living crisis, adding however that there is no easy fix.
“There's always room for improvement with anything, but I think we have to be fair as well, an airline is an incredibly complex business. Entering and exiting a pandemic is unheard of – it’s the worst thing to happen to the aviation industry in its history.
“So I think airlines have done very well, but demand has crept up, people have left the industry and there are significant challenges there. In my opinion, they have handled them well, and will continue to do so going forward, given the opportunity.”
Photo: John Farrelly
