Having most of its Boeing 777 pilots already flying, Emirates airline is about to start bringing back its Airbus A380 pilots which are currently on furlough. The air carrier plans to reinstate from 70 to 100 pilots per month, its COO told local media.
Emirates fleet is composed of only two aircraft types, the Boeing 777 and the Airbus A380, both widebodies. While the majority of Emirates 777 pilots are already back to work, the same cannot be said about the A380 flight crew.
The airline has already brought 169 out of its 263 planes back to service. Among the aircraft that remain parked, only five are 777s, Planespotters.net data shows. Meanwhile, only about a quarter of the Super Jumbos, 30 out of 119, are back in service, the same data source shows.
However, there’s a ray of hope for Emirates A380 pilots. The airline’s chief operating officer Adel Al Redha told the media that the airline would be bringing its furloughed A380 pilots back to work, at a rate of 70 to 100 per month.
“Regarding our A380 pilots, we will start building the numbers up as we put more aircraft back in operation,” Al Redha said, as cited by the National. “We are constrained with the number of training sessions that we can hold in our simulator, but we are currently working on bringing in between 70 to 100 pilots per month to re-train.”