LONDON – Iberia, the Spanish flag carrier has announced that it will be welcoming its first batch of 20 new pilots since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, which disrupted the civil aviation industry worldwide.
The new batch of 20 pilots is expected to join the Iberia in early week of July as the passenger demand and capacity has bounced back, and the airlines is expecting busy summer holiday season.
The Iberia has expressed their gratitude in welcoming these new pilots as the carrier suffered substantially during onset of pandemic over two years.
The carrier also stated that they are set to welcome another set of 20 pilots who will be joining in October this year with additional 20 technical crew members set to be onboard same month.
All the pilots and technical crew are being trained at the Flight Training Europe School in Jerez in Spain.
Speaking on this occasion, Iberia’s Production Director, Rafael Jiménez-Hoyos said, “The arrival of new pilots in Iberia is very good news, the best sign that we are flying towards recovery. In addition, our collaboration with FTEJerez through the Iberia Cadets programme guarantees that we are getting the professionals with the best skills for the future of Iberia.”
The prestigious project launch by the Iberia to produce highly skilled and trained pilots through its ‘cadet program’ which was launched in August 2019 is responsible to offer first batch of such 20 pilots who will be onboarded the carrier.
Along with the cadet pilots, the carrier will also be technical crew members through this initiative, where the program was introduced in July 2019.
The Iberia cadet program is regarded as one of the valuable and prestigious one amongst youth in the country and in Europe, where the carrier is investing to promote, educate and develop new line of pilots to fulfil increasing demand in air transport industry.
Iberia also contribute towards tuition and maintenance cost for cadet pilot and technical crew program thus offering financial aid towards the younger skill development and encouraging youth to join the labour market.
Iberia works closely with the FTEJérez, the flight training school based in southern Spain to produce their highly skilled cadet pilots. The candidates are selected by the airline and school who will be onboarded Iberia cadet program.
The cadet will be in position to obtain their Air Transport Pilot License, where Iberia will be funding 50% of the program, with interest free financial aid.
CEO for FTEJérez, Óscar Sordo said that,” For FTEJerez it is a source of pride that Iberia continues to trust us to train its next generation of pilots, and this is another example of the industry recovery after the pandemic. This new call for applications is undoubtedly a sign of the success of the Iberia Cadetes programme and reinforces our relationship with the airline, which began in 2017.”
As the demand for air travel is surging in post pandemic era, and airlines are falling short with staff, this initiative outlined by Iberia will prove beneficial for the carrier as it will ensure highly skilled and trained cadets will be readily available for jobs as soon as they graduate from flight school with ATPL.
This initiative can be seen as a milestone in the Spanish and European aviation industry and certainly a role model to be followed by the industry.
