The Royal Flying Doctor Service has seen hundreds of applications for pilot jobs with sector-wide unemployment rates rising.
The Royal Flying Doctor Service has received hundreds of applicants for pilot job roles that, in the past, were lucky to see more than 30 people express interest.Extra funding expanded job openings from two to fourHead of flying operations, Shane Lawrey, said with pilots previously employed by Qantas and Virgin Australia out of work he has seen a dramatic rise in interest for the RFDS regional positions.
"We have been basically catching up ever since because the aviation market has been quite buoyant, however the COVID situation has turned that around quite dramatically." A recently advertised position for a pilot to live and work in the Mount Isa region in Queensland's north west attracted 250 applications."To paint a picture, back in 2017 we put an ad out and I think we got about 36 applicants."Mr Lawrey said the RFDS in particular have been fortunate to secure extra funding during COVID-19 to employ more pilots.
"We have expanded by four pilots, which isn't a huge amount — but we've taken that as an opportunity to take advantage of the market at the moment," he said."We've had a 25,000-hour Qantas pilot, an A330 captain fly for us out of Qantas for a number of years, after taking a sabbatical from Qantas."
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