BA asks pilots to become flight attendants in big push to hire 4,000 cabin crew for summer


Captains, prepare for take-off! BA asks pilots to become flight attendants in big push to hire 4,000 cabin crew for summer as airline gets ready for post-Covid rush

  • BA’s ‘Discovery’ learning scheme will train pilots how to be flight attendants
  • It comes as the company launches a drive to find 4,000 new cabin crew
  • Discovery – which lets captains keep £100,000 salary – is ahead of summer rush 


British Airways have invited pilots to train to become flight attendants ahead of a predicted travel boom.

The firm – which is anticipating a big holiday rush this year – wants to hire 4,000 cabin crew before summer arrives.

And it has offered captains the chance to do the six weeks of training, which includes the safety routines and serving customers on board.

The roles are only temporary and pilots would still get their over £100,000 salaries as part of the ‘Discovery’ learning scheme.

Currently it is only available to workers at BA CityFlyer and London City Airport and the firm’s headquarters.

But it has received some criticism after BA laid off 10,000 staff just two years ago.

Two female British Airways Cabin Crew from the Ambassador team, on board an Airbus A38;

Two female British Airways Cabin Crew from the Ambassador team, on board an Airbus A380

A pilot from the British Airways wearing a face mask arrive at Heathrow international airport

A pilot from the British Airways wearing a face mask arrive at Heathrow international airport

A source told The Sun: ‘This has not gone down well with pilots. They think it’s a complete joke.

‘Thousands of jobs were cut and now they’re worried about staff numbers. It’s no surprise to anybody — but this isn’t the way to win back loyalty.’

Pilots have recently been given a five per cent pay increase by BA.

Other workers were also handed a generous five per cent bonus, on a one-off basis.

The ‘Discovery’ scheme was launched back in November as travel started gearing up once more.

It includes a £300 referral bonus if workers get friends or family to take part.

British Airways is recruiting 4,000 cabin crew ahead of a predicted summer travel boom

British Airways is recruiting 4,000 cabin crew ahead of a predicted summer travel boom

The drive comes as the travel sector begins to start up again after two years of devastation under Boris Johnson’s restrictions during the Coronavirus pandemic.

It suffered numerous false starts under the Tories’ ever-changing testing and red list regulations, decimating confidence in passengers to go abroad.

A British Airways spokesperson said: ‘We are proud to have launched our learning programme, Discovery, offering colleagues in head office functions the opportunity to try an operational role on a temporary basis.

‘Discovery will bring together our customer support schemes into one.’

Today it was reported Grant Shapps is pushing for the end of the widely-panned passenger locator forms still needed to enter the UK by the start of April.

As an interim measure the forms, in which people must provide contact and travel details, are to be significantly simplified in the coming weeks.

The travel industry has been calling for the cumbersome documents to be scrapped, saying they are acting as a drag on British holiday firms.

The documents have already been simplified once, to shorten the time it takes to fill them in. And by the end of the month, people will be given an extra day to fill them out.

It is a criminal offence to provide false or deliberately misleading information when filling out the form.

People who do not provide accurate details about the countries they have visited in the ten days before they arrived in the UK can be fined, imprisoned or both.

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