Venari Partners Director James Parker gives his view on the year’s major themes for recruitment in the aviation industry, and looks ahead to what might be in store for 2025.
Well, here we are again. Another year gone – and from a recruitment perspective, this has been a good, rather than a great one, for aviation. Activity has been varied, and while volume remained constant in 2024, it’s safe to say that the major hiring drive that we saw post-COVID was never going to stay at that pace indefinitely. Recruitment has since slowed down to a more normal rate. Corporate headcount has remained pretty consistent, but if one theme has continued over from last year, it’s that hiring has been largely based around attrition, rather than growth.
It's been a slightly puzzling year for the industry. While 2024 was relatively successful from a revenue perspective, we haven’t seen recruitment strategies for corporate, senior management, and C-suite roles reflect this. Some carriers boosted their ranks, certainly, yet some put in hiring freezes, and others cut their numbers. The latter has been true particularly among several large US airlines, though it’s pleasing to note the re-emergence of markets like Latin America, which was slower to recover after the pandemic. Hiring in the Middle East, meanwhile, has remained steady, though we’re still waiting to see international recruitment pick up again in Asia and Africa.
What else happened in 2024, and what do we foresee for the year ahead?
Changes at the top and at structural level
Relative to years gone by, we’ve seen an unprecedented level of CEO turnover among notable aviation brands within the last twelve months. What is less surprising is that the vast majority of these roles were filled with internal candidates, with no external process at all for some openings. It is impressive to note how many airlines have structures in place for CEO succession planning.
Adding to this scenario was the relative stability among senior leadership, contrasting with the big moves among CEOs. We would normally expect shake-ups, and/or new chief executives bringing in people from their networks, but by and large this hasn’t happened (one notable exception was Joanna Geraghty bringing Marty St George back to JetBlue after she was promoted to CEO back in February).
Just a few of the airlines to have appointed new CEOs in 2024 include:
Avianca – Frederico Pedreira (internal)
easyJet – Kenton Jarvis (internal; starting January 2025)
Finnair – Turkka Kuusisto (external)
Flyadeal – Steven Greenway (external)
Iberia – Marco Sansavini (internal move within IAG)
Oman Air – Con Korfiatis (external)
Swiss International – Jens Fehlinger (internal)
Vueling – Carolina Martinoli (internal move within IAG)
Are we seeing the beginning of large-scale consolidation in the industry, meanwhile? The ownership structures of several prominent carriers have changed, for instance at SAS and perhaps most notably at Alaska Airlines, now that their purchase of Hawaiian has gone through successfully. We anticipate that this will result in some turnover. Elsewhere, we will have to wait and see what next year brings for Spirit as they begin their Chapter 11 process, while Lufthansa’s interest in ITA is well documented and unlikely to be the only potential consolidation we see in 2025.
Which roles have been in demand?
In terms of functional specialisms, we saw more commercial roles come up than we did in 2023, particularly network planning positions. Jobs with an analytical element continue to come to market across all functional verticals, especially in areas such as operational planning, revenue management, and crew planning. Data-driven decision-making is here to stay.
While we do not recruit for high-volume operational hires, filling these continues to be an issue for the industry, especially in engineering and maintenance. Aging workforces in these areas is also a notable concern, as is interest in attracting airline operational talent away from the industry into the broader travel ecosystem – for instance, vertical take-off, as well as drone companies. Many organisations in these fields offer attractive salary packages and lucrative equity schemes that aviation businesses will struggle to compete with.
It would be remiss of us not to mention how the cost base for operations staff has increased due to numerous strikes this year, underlining the need for strong leadership across such functions. Separately, customer experience has also been a key area of interest, not least in aerospace and airports; stay tuned for further details and observations about this space from us.
Digital and tech still in demand
Digital remains an area that many carriers wish to boost, and their willingness to approach and hire experts from outside the industry is a trend we’ve observed with interest. The aviation industry is trying to learn from e-commerce and B2C businesses like gambling, gaming, online e-commerce, innovative technology (e.g. companies such as Spotify, as well as social media platforms). We’re even seeing interest in candidates from the financial services industry, particularly the application development side. Many organisations are trying to bolster their digital and tech capacity by recruiting from these sectors.
It’s still too early to say how long this will last or how successful it will be long-term, though the demand is certainly there right now. Our industry has a chequered history of attracting and retaining talent from outside the industry, be that because of salary, culture, career progression, or the time pressure required to acclimatise to the idiosyncrasies of the sector. Airlines that want to build best-in-class distribution need to learn from customer-intuitive businesses about maximising their digital offerings.
Salary and international hiring trends
As I mentioned above, ground and in-flight staff have been striking in 2024 – but meanwhile, C-suite salaries continue to rise. Last year, we commented on the notable jumps we’d observed in US pay packages and predicted that it would be a while before we saw any further increases. 2024 has shown this to be far from true as salaries stateside continue to rise above the average for the global industry. These days, VPs in large US airlines could be earning total annualised packages in excess of seven figures – sums that would only be accessible to C-suite leaders in the rest of the world.
It’s been interesting to note that Latin American carriers seem to be following the US’ lead, frequently paying more than European airlines (who are also playing catchup, albeit slower). Carriers with more nimble salary packages are seeing these policies – pardon the pun – pay off. By contrast, much of the Middle East, where high wages have been utilised to entice talent historically, has not kept pace and the recent increase in living costs in the region makes it a more prohibitive destination for many expat candidates. (At the same time, do Middle Eastern airlines need to pay above market rate nowadays, when the destination has never been more attractive?)
It remains extremely difficult to hire international talent into US-based roles, in contrast to international markets generally. Indeed, one consequence of Brexit is that whereas UK carriers might previously have prioritised EU candidates, now they can consider talent from all over the world. Going forward, we believe that the jobs market for UK aviation is likely to become more diverse since all candidates from outside the UK and Ireland are now subject to the same visa sponsorship rules.
Aviation is in the curious position of having rising pay against a backdrop of inconsistent demand for jobs. We would expect salary growth to slow down next year, because the current pace is hardly sustainable long-term. Then again, we said that last year, so who knows when executive pay might start to level off. I don’t believe that 2025 bonuses accrued in 2024 will match the sums paid out for 2023, but the overall packages might be comparable when salary increases are taken into consideration.
How are DEI and sustainability faring?
Diversity, equity & inclusion (DEI) continues to be talked about, but are we seeing notable changes in hiring profiles? Stay tuned for our annual gender diversity report in January for more.
Venari Partners welcomed Alex Hyde as Principal Consultant in our Sustainability, Energy Transition & Circularity practice earlier this year. On the burgeoning interest in sustainability from the aviation industry, Alex writes:
Sustainability continues to become a growing topic in aviation, and we’ve handled a high number of sustainability leadership mandates in 2024. This correlates with a wider trend as more internal moves and promotions take place across the sector. As sustainable aviation fuel production ramps up, and wider sustainability-led innovation becomes increasingly available, there is increased opportunity for businesses in the aviation industry to make progress on their net-zero ambitions. As such, having the right teams in place is critical.
Looking ahead to 2025
So, enough about the year just gone. What’s on the cards come January?
Hiring will follow this year’s trends
We expect attritional recruitment to continue, with further C-suite moves following on from recent or incoming turnover at chief-executive level. There is likely to be movement among board members, too; as tenures come to an end, structures for non-executive directors will most likely change. Many airlines have had stability at board level for a few years now, so we be paying close attention to how this situation pans out.
Making the most of non-aviation talent for recruitment
Overtures from aviation to digital and tech specialists from outside of the industry should ramp up in 2025. We hope that candidates making the move from sectors like tech and finance will hit the ground running and we are certainly curious to see how this recruitment drive unfolds – though as I mentioned above, it should be noted that the strategy of trying to poach talent from other industries has not always been successful for aviation organisations in the past.
It’s a double-edged sword: digital and tech talent tends to be sector-agnostic and less loyal than the lifers who typically work in aviation, while salaries are also less competitive. Airlines, meanwhile, are generally less effective at onboarding than businesses in other sectors. Carriers hiring talent from outside would do well to provide more substantial crash courses to give the new recruits primers on aviation. (Of course, staff need to be open to learn, also – too often, airlines have seen external hires come and go rapidly.)
Areas that need a change – and areas that are changing
Staying with recruitment, a considerable challenge for aviation to address over the coming years is the aging workforce in maintenance. That the average age for an engineer in the sector is 51 should be sounding alarm bells; the industry should build a pipeline for future talent in operations roles as soon as possible. Airlines cannot continue to do what they’ve always done – innovation is required.
Heavy operations is just one area where we would like to see greater diversity in aviation in 2025. While some airlines have been taking steps to address this in recent years, more innovation and deliberation around DEI across the industry would be more than welcome. Separately, we remain cautiously optimistic about how data analytics and AI can make aviation more efficient and dynamic, though the same old problems around attracting suitable talent to the industry are likely to continue into next year.
How will the global picture look?
Despite many Middle Eastern cities being attractive for candidates, we nonetheless anticipate that airlines in the Gulf shall need to address the salary situation sooner or later as competition for the best candidates intensifies worldwide. Meanwhile, we hope for a slow and gradual return to expat hiring in Asia. In the US, we could see yet more consolidation under the new, pro-business political administration; it is interesting to consider whether JetBlue and Spirit’s merger would have collapsed under a Trump government.
I am writing this from our trendy Shoreditch office, where it can be all too easy to forget the myriad troubles affecting various parts of the world. While conflict and natural disasters that seem far away can have huge knock-on effects on our lives and work, any such disruptions pale in comparison to the troubles faced by those living in the areas directly affected. Going into 2025, I will be more than ever to be grateful for what I have, and to hope for peaceful resolutions to the wars in Ukraine, the Middle East, and elsewhere.
News from our side
You can expect to be seeing plenty more of Venari Partners next year. We’re very excited to have recently signed a strategic partnership agreement with IATA and are counting the days until their AGM already. We’re also looking forward to industry gatherings like the World Aviation Festival and CAPA, to name just two; we plan to attend more than ever before in 2025. While we’ve never had more talent on our aviation team than now, we expect our numbers to grow yet further as we reach for a greater market share – not just in senior management and executive search across airlines, but also airports and airline and airport service providers.
Thanks are due now
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank our wonderful marketing team at Venari Partners, who have done so much to boost our branding, as well as companies like McKinsey that we’ve partnered with at corporate events. A last thank you, also, to the fantastic guests we’ve welcomed to the Venari Podcast who share their industry knowledge and leadership insights to our network. Would you like us to record more content like this – and, if so, what kind of subjects would you like to see covered? We’re always keen to hear from listeners and to consider new ideas, so do drop us a line if you have something in mind.
Finally, I want to wish my entire network a very happy and restful holiday season, and all the best for the new year. See you in 2025.
We are always keen to hear from aviation businesses who need expert advice on identifying, attracting, and retaining premium executive leadership, Just reach out to us to learn more.