Breeze Airways, an upstart carrier founded by airline entrepreneur David Neeleman, has dropped a plan to hire only full-time, online college students as flight attendants because the innovative plan didn’t produce enough job applicants. Breeze posted flight attendant job openings on at least one online website Friday, but said it will continue the work-study program with Utah Valley University. While Breeze will hire students as young as 18, the notice for full-time flight attendant positions set a minimum age of 20 with the requirement of a high school diploma or equivalent. “We’re still keeping the program, and standing by all its goals, but we needed additional numbers beyond that,” said a Breeze spokesman.<br/>
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Airlines spent much of the last year worrying about having too many employees after travel demand plummeted. Now they’re trying to avoid the opposite problem as customers return and the Covid pandemic’s impact starts to abate. Southwest is the latest airline to address that issue and is planning to resume hiring flight attendants in the coming weeks, according to note to cabin crews, which was seen by CNBC. A Southwest spokesman said it was too early to determine how many flight attendants it will need. Rivals including American Airlines, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines have recently announced they plan to resume hiring pilots this year, in hopes they will be able to cater to a rise in travel demand in the coming years, while hundreds of aviators near the federally mandated retirement age of 65. Southwest recently said it planned to recall flight attendants who took temporary leave, at the company’s urging, next month. “In order to support future operational needs, all Flight Attendants have been recalled to work effective June 1, and we will need to hire Flight Attendants in the immediate future,” said the staff note.<br/>
Air Arabia on Sunday reported a 52% fall in Q1 profit, compared to the same period a year earlier. The Sharjah-based airline’s Q1 net profit stood at Dh34m for the three months ending March 31, 2021. The company had posted a profit of Dh71m in Q1 of 2020. More than 1.3m passengers flew with Air Arabia between January and March 2021 across the carrier’s five hubs while the airline’s average seat load factor – or passengers carried as a percentage of available seats – stood at 77%. “We are proud that Air Arabia managed to post another profitable quarter despite the continued impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the aviation industry worldwide - this is a testament to the carrier’s robust business and its management team,” said Abdullah Al Thani, Chairman of Air Arabia. “Although the tightened restrictions on air travel continued in the first quarter of this year, the gradual resumption to selected destinations combined with cost control measures adopted by the carrier helped to deliver profitability during the first quarter of this year,” he added.<br/>
Israel approved on Sunday a bailout package for flag carrier El Al Israel Airlines ELAL.TA that has the government covering 685m shekels ($210m) of company security costs and the airline issuing new shares and freezing dividend payments. The Finance Ministry said the state agreed to pay a lump sum that would cover 20 years of tickets for flight security officials. A similar deal worth 52m shekels was approved for smaller local rival Israir. The assistance, the ministry said, was conditioned on El Al shareholder commitment to issue $105m in new shares and to freeze dividend allotments for the next five years.<br/>
Australia’s Regional Express (Rex) is hopeful it will break even by July this year, even as it acknowledges that its regional operations are loss-making “at current demand levels”. In an interim business update disclosed on 10 May, Rex states that its cash position has “improved exponentially”, with its unencumbered cash reserves increasing tenfold compared to March 2020, as a result of strong forward bookings. The carrier notes that while regional demand is at around 60% pre-pandemic levels, “recovery is uneven across the states”. It cites two Australian states — Queensland and Western Australia — where it has had a strong showing. In Queensland, demand has surpassed pre-pandemic levels, while Western Australian flights are approaching pre-pandemic demand levels. As for capacity, Rex discloses that regional capacity now stands at around 35% pre-pandemic levels. “Rex is cautiously expanding its regional network in an effort to stimulate demand. We are keeping our capacity growth about 5% ahead of demand growth,” the carrier states.<br/>