Aurigny will add seven pilots to its 50-strong team of captains and first officers this year following a successful recruitment campaign to overcome the industry-wide pilot shortage.
The airline has taken proactive measures to ensure the resilience of operations for the local community and valued customers, including additional support from ACMI wetleases – where additional aircraft and crew are brought in to allow schedules to run as planned.
Leading the recruitment project at Aurigny is seasoned industry professional Philip Smallwood (pictured), with over 16 years of executive management experience at easyJet. His expertise in managing pilot crews, numbering in the thousands, has proved vital in the onboarding of new pilots.
Philip Smallwood, Chief Operations Officer at Aurigny, said: “As with many organisations, recruitment is an ongoing priority. We’ve put even more focus into our efforts following an unanticipated shortfall in pilot numbers due to illness and attrition in the first three months of this year. As a small island we face a significant challenge securing the right talent and basing them in Guernsey. I’m pleased our efforts have been successful. We now move into a training phase – which of course takes time. We appreciate the continued patience of our passengers and the community as we onboard this new team.”
Aurigny has been working with AeroProfessional, a specialised recruitment firm, to source new ATR captains and first officers. Training for these pilots will begin in May, with the expectation that they will be operational to support peak summer flying from July.
Nico Bezuidenhout, CEO of Aurigny, said: “I want to reassure the community that we are not headed towards disruption on the scale that we experienced last year. We now have fleet stability and the recruitment of these pilots is another step on the road to ensuring operational resilience for the summer.”
