S.Korea's airlines boosting staff amid recovering demand for overseas travel

South Korea's airlines are opening their hiring doors wide open with the resumption of international flights amid demand for overseas travel recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The low-cost carrier (LCC) Jin Air on Wednesday announced open recruiting of entry-level and experienced staff this year in eight areas like business strategy, finance and accounting, sales and cargo services. This is its first such recruitment since September 2018 and follows its help wanted notice for cabin crew in February this year.

Fellow LCC Jeju Air Co. in January also conducted open recruitment of cabin crew and posted last month a hiring notice for general staff. Eastar Jet also began hiring more staff late last month in resuming operations after a three-year hiatus.

Korean Air Lines Co., a full-service carrier and not an LCC, finished hiring cabin crew and general staff at the end of last year and is now seeking experienced pilots. Asiana Airlines Inc., which will merge with Korean Air, is also considering adding to its payroll.

LCCs have resumed flights mainly on routes to Japan, China and Southeast Asia, but their flight volume remains under 50% from that of 2019, the year before the pandemic hit. Air Portal of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said LCCs in the first quarter of 2019 ran 42,968 international flights but just 19,231 in the same quarter this year.

The government has announced plans to resume major routes, raise the number of flights and link more destinations to raise the number of international flights to 90% of that in 2019 by September.

"Along with the recovery of demand for international flights, airlines are quickly securing personnel," an airline industry source said. "By year's end, their scale of operations is expected to return to pre-pandemic levels."'

Write to Misun-Kang at misunny@hankyung.com