Delta Air Gets 22,000 Applications for 300 Attendant Jobs

 By Mary Schlangenstein - Dec 21, 2012 2:17 PM MT.

Delta Air Lines Inc. (DAL), the world’s second-largest carrier, received 22,000 applications for about 300 flight attendant jobs in the first week after posting the positions outside the company.

“We’re hunting for foreign-language speakers as we continue to expand to all points around the globe,” Richard Anderson, chief executive officer of Delta Air Lines Inc. said. Photographer: Chris Rank/Bloomberg
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The applications arrived at a rate of two per minute, Chief Executive Officer Richard Anderson told workers in a weekly recorded message. Applicants will be interviewed in January and those hired will begin flying in June, for the peak travel season.

“We’re hunting for foreign-language speakers as we continue to expand to all points around the globe,” Anderson said. “We are experiencing a phenomenal response to the job posting.”

Delta’s applicant rush reflects the demand for jobs amid a 7.9 percent U.S. unemployment rate and the interest in an industry where flight privileges are a prized employee benefit. The Atlanta-based carrier received 100,000 applications for 1,000 jobs when it last hired flight attendants in October 2010.

While Anderson put the number of positions in the latest round of hiring at about 300, Betsy Talton, a spokeswoman, said it could reach 400. As many as 30 percent will speak languages including Japanese, Hindi, Mandarin and Portuguese, she said.

Delta has said it plans to develop Seattle into a U.S. West Coast gateway for flights to Asia, adding service to Tokyo’s Haneda airport and to Shanghai. In October, the Atlanta-based airline said it would add flights between Paris and 11 U.S. cities in 2013.

US Airways Group Inc. (LCC) attracted 14,000 applicants when it hired 420 attendants in December of that year.
 
Airline Employment

U.S. passenger airlines employed 384,310 workers in October, down 1.3 percent from a year earlier, the U.S. Transportation Department’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics said in a report today. The total for October, the latest month for which government statistics are available, was the lowest since May 2011, the agency said.

Five so-called network airlines that include Delta and United Continental Holdings Inc. employ two-thirds of the total workers. They reported 1.4 percent fewer full-time equivalent employees in October from a year earlier.

Low-cost carriers such as Southwest Airlines Co. and JetBlue Airways Corp. reported a 1.6 percent increase, BTS said.

Delta fell 0.7 percent to $11.86 at the close in New York as most other members of the Bloomberg U.S. Airlines Index (BUSAIRL) also declined. The shares have risen 47 percent this year.

To contact the reporter on this story: Mary Schlangenstein in Dallas at maryc.s@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Ed Dufner at edufner@bloomberg.net