Virgin Atlantic hiring to accommodate expansion

Virgin Atlantic is to hire an additional 1,500 staff to help support the rapid expansion of the airline's long-haul route network.

The jobs will be mainly in operational posts with up to 1,100 cabin crew and 150 flight crew set to be recruited in coming months, the airline's chairman, Sir Richard Branson, said.

An extra 100 jobs willbe created at Virgin Atlantic's head office near Gatwick airport. The hiring spree coincided with Virgin's inaugural flight from London to Cuba and the Bahamas - the third new route launch in the past six months.

The expansion comes despite the escalation in oil prices which is expected to increase the airline's fuel bill by £90m to £380m this year.

Virgin joined British Airways last week by increasing fuel surcharges from £32 to £48 for a return trip. Even then, the surcharge will cover only a third of the increase in Virgin's fuel bill, which this year will account for 25 per cent of total operating costs.

In addition to the launch of services to Sydney last December, Mumbai in March and now Havana and Nassau, Virgin plans to start flying to Dubai and Jamaica in the next 18 months and increase existing services to Shanghai, Las Vegas, Port Harcourt and Orlando.

A total of even new Airbus A340-600 aircraft - the longest airliners in the world - are due to enter service by the end of next year, increasing Virgin's fleet to 39 aircraft.

However, the airline has decided to delay taking delivery of the new Airbus superjumbo, the A380,for a year. The 555-seat double-decker airliner had been due to enter service with Virgin in 2008 but will not now be introduced into the fleet until 2009.

The new Havana and Nassau routes will operate from Gatwick using Boeing 747-400 aircraft.

Of the 1,500 jobs announced yesterday, 1,000 are new and 500 will result from natural turnover, increasing the Virgin Atlantic workforce from 8,500 to 9,500.

Last month, Virgin reported its best financial results for six years, recording a £68m profit for the 12 months to the end of February on sales of £1.27bn.

However, stripping out one-off gains from asset sales and a revaluation of the Virgin fleet, profits were flat at £21m. Virgin said it had been held back by the increase in fuel costs and heavy expenditure on route launches and upgrading its long-haul services.

- INDEPENDENT