Emirates Hails 5000th Crew Member
Even though she’s only 23, Sara Luis Hannan is already a world citizen. The daughter of Spanish and Irish parents, she graduated in biochemistry from Imperial College, London and worked in Sioux City American Theme Park, on the Spanish island of Gran Canaria.
Now, since last week, the smiling senorita has proudly symbolised both the international character of Emirates and its dizzying growth, becoming the airline’s 5,000th cabin crew trainee to graduate and eager to provide the quality service that is its trademark.
Sara has aviation fuel in her veins—her mother Annette flew with Laker Airways, her sister works for Airbus in Germany, and her teenage brother wants to be a pilot.
Bilingual in Spanish and English, she was president of her university’s Spanish Society, secretary of its Irish Society, and treasurer of its biochemistry society. Now the time has come for her to spread her wings wider with high-flying Emirates.
New wide-body aircraft are being delivered to the airline at the rate of more than one a month and the fleet is projected to grow to more than 130 jets in just another eight years.
As a result, Emirates has raised its recruitment and training rate to deliver the hundreds of new crew needed to provide top-quality service to an ever-growing stream of loyal customers.
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In the 2003-04 financial year to 31st March, the airline carried an extra 5,500 new passengers a day more than in the previous year—almost two million, or 23 per cent more.
Already this year Emirates has extended its passenger network to Lagos, Accra, Glasgow, Shanghai and Vienna. New York and Christchurch start next—and Sara is looking forward to her first direct flight from Dubai to America as one of the airline’s most recently-qualified stewardesses, once non-stop flights begin on 1st June.
By then, many more new crew members will have been selected and hired, and will have started their own training.
As in her case, Emirates will be looking for confident, cheerful, flexible, mature and understanding candidates, with excellent social skills, and at ease with customers from every country and culture. The job offers top class benefits and a chance to live in Dubai, famed for its shopping, sports, food and leisure.
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