Alaska Airlines plans to hire some 3,500 employees for a variety of roles in 2023 – including pilots, flight attendants and customer service agents – to keep pace with its rapidly growing fleet.
The Seattle-headquartered carrier anticipates adding 1,000 flight attendants, 1,000 customer service agents, 240 contact centre agents, 135 maintenance technicians, 100 ramp service agents, 500 managers and 550 pilots.
Alaska projects needing to hire roughly the same number of new pilots annually through 2025.
“As we continue to grow and bring dozens of new airplanes into our fleet, we need thousands of people to join the Alaska family,” the airline said on 10 January.
Alaska has ordered 52 Boeing 737 Max jets and secured rights to purchase a further 105 – part of its plan to completely retire its Airbus A320s and De Havilland Canada Dash 8-400s by the end of 2023.
“It’s an exciting time to join our team, and we’re eager to welcome more great people to Alaska,” says Andy Schneider, the airline’s senior vice-president of people. “We offer a wide variety of positions, and we pride ourselves on nurturing talent and providing opportunities to learn new skills and move into new, challenging roles.”
Most of the jobs – many of which do not require previous experience in the airline industry, Alaska notes – will be based in Seattle, Portland and other cities on the west coast of the USA.
In October 2022, Alaska agreed to a new three-year contract with its 3,300 pilots represented by the Air Line Pilots Association, International that includes wage increase of up to 23%.
