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With more countries resuming air travel, airlines are picking up the pace in their hiring process.

Singapore Airlines (SIA) has done just that, hiring more than 800 cabin crew members since March.

Amongst these new hires, three in five of them were former crew members who had left the job.

The national carrier aims to recruit 2,000 cabin crew by March 2023 in anticipation of the growing demand for air travel, reported The Straits Times (ST).

Hiring again

SIA chief executive Goh Choon Phong told The Sunday Times that SIA has been proactive with their hiring as they anticipated the opening up of international borders and wanted to get ahead in the hiring process.

With a majority of the hires having worked with SIA before, it reduced the amount of time needed to train them, said Goh.

In September 2020, the SIA Group, including Scoot, saw a cut of about 4,300 positions. The group had to let go of fewer than 2,000 staff members.

Prior to that, the SIA Group had about 3,200 pilots and almost 11,000 cabin crew.

Goh added that the number of pilots at the SIA Group now is similar to pre-Covid-19 numbers.

Almost all of its existing pilots, cabin crew and aircraft are now flying regularly again but none of the flights or crew is fully utilised yet.

The planes and crew members were deployed on a regular basis so that they can be operationally ready.

Crew size lower than pre-Covid-19

In an SIA press release on May 18, the group announced that the passenger carriage for the 2021/2022 financial year went up by six times as international air travel recovered over the last six months.

SIA increased passenger capacity from 24 per cent of pre-Covid-19 levels in April 2021 to 51 per cent by the end of March 2022.

In addition, SIA projected that its passenger capacity would hit 61 per cent of pre-pandemic levels for the first quarter of the 2022/2023 financial year and 67 per cent by the second quarter.

The group also expects to serve over 70 per cent of its pre-Covid-19 destinations by the end of the second quarter.

Despite this projection, Goh said SIA is not restoring its crew capacity to pre-Covid levels just yet, according to ST.

Some countries, including China, may not reopen so soon and the group is still uncertain when it will ease its travel restrictions, he added.

More inquiries through customer service call centre

Goh also shared that SIA's customer service centre has experienced an increase in customer inquiries, ST reported.

On some days, the call volume would be up to 160 per cent of Covid-19 levels.

This occurred after the Singapore government announced it would open up to travellers vaccinated against Covid-19 from April last year.

With the frequent changes in border restrictions and Covid-19 test requirements, many customers would feel more assured by calling the airline to confirm relevant information.

Goh added that the situation is "rapidly being resolved" and apologised to customers affected by delays.

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