US Airways Inc. said Monday it is adding 80 pilots and 420 flight attendants in coming months, offering further indication that airline employment may have hit bottom.

The most recent Bureau of Transportation Statistics numbers showed that the airline industry had 377,800 jobs in August, down 1.7 percent from the previous August.

But the year-over-year declines in full-time equivalent jobs are leveling off, with August’s decline the smallest in more than two years. Read the rest of this entry

India will seek to impress on United States President Barack Obama through his November 6-9 trip that outsourcing has actually created thousands of employment opportunities in the Us, and not taken them away.

“The issue of outsourcing will obviously figure in the discussions,” Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao shared with reporters here, briefing on the details of the US president’s visit, while addressing what has also been a delicate challenge for the two sides.

“Recent studies by FICCI (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry) have shown that thousands of jobs have been created by our greenfield partnerships,” said Rao, referring to the growing operations of Indian corporations in the Us. Read the rest of this entry

Delta flight attendants have voted narrowly against unionization.

The returns that were released on Wednesday by the Association of Flight Attendants showed that only 49 per cent of flight attendants voted in favor of union. Delta Air Lines has 20,000 flight attendants, which include approximately 7,000 who came from Northwest Airlines in 2008.

The Northwest flight attendants have been in the union, although their Delta co-workers were not. The voting was to resolve ıf the union would cover all of them.

GE Aviation has shuttered a long-time engine repair and testing facility in Ontario, CA.

The aircraft engine site, at the Los Angeles/Ontario International Airport, will close by the end of the year.
Deb Case, a spokesperson with Evendale-based GE Aviation, said a dip in cargo traffic led to the decision to shut down the site. Read the rest of this entry

The Philippine Labor Department approved on Friday the mass lay-off of 2,600 employees of Philippine Airlines. The affected workers are those in PAL’s in-flight catering, airport services and call center reservations, whose jobs would be outsourced by the flag carrier to cut costs.

Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz declared the lay-offs as lawful because of PAL’s cost-cutting program.

But Baldoz required PAL to provided affected employees with transition guarantees and benefits. Read the rest of this entry

Budget airline Ryanair is to axe 1,000 jobs including 150 pilot and cabin crew posts, it has been announced.

The cutbacks are at Frankfurt Hahn airport and will affect flight frequencies to the German base from Stansted and Edinburgh airports.

Ryanair blamed the cuts, to take effect from next summer, on the German government’s new eight euro (£7) tourist tax.