United Airlines said Wednesday that it hired 7,000 new workers in the first four months of this year and plans to hit 15,000 new hires by year-end, matching the number it hired last year.
By 2026, United projects adding 50,000 workers to a workforce that was about 93,000 at the start of this year.
“We are in hiring mode here at United Airlines,” Kate Gebo, the company's executive vice president of human resources, told reporters. Airline officials said they already have enough pilots to operate the peak summer schedule.
Airlines have been in a hiring frenzy since being caught understaffed when air travel bounced back from the depths of the pandemic more quickly than anticipated. Shortages of pilots and flight attendants contributed to a jump in the rates of canceled and delayed flights last year.
The nation's passenger airlines received $54 billion in taxpayer money to keep people on the payroll through the pandemic, and they were prohibited from making layoffs, but they got around that prohibition by paying workers to quit or take early retirement.