Irish low-cost airline Ryanair, soon to start operations in Ukraine, is looking to hire pilots, stewards and up to 250 information technology specialists in the country, the company’s CEO Michael O’Leary said in an interview with publication CTS on March 28.
Ryanair requires more technical resources for storing and processing its data, the amount of which “grows every year.” O’Leary said he thinks a data center in Ukraine could come in handy.
O’Leary said he knows that Ukrainian tech people are professional, as Ryanair operates in Poland, and 50 percent of the people Ryanair hires there are IT specialists from Ukraine.
“We know that Ukrainians are truly competent,” he said. So it might be “very efficient to create a Ryanair data center in Ukraine and employ 250 Ukrainian tech specialists,” he said.
“We’re already working on it,” O’Leary added.
Apart from a data center, the Irish CEO wants to create a Ukrainian center for technical maintenance of Ryanair planes.
“Our fleet is growing all the time, and it means that we always need more facilities for technical maintenance,” the CEO said.
Ryanair has several technical service centers in Eastern Europe, including in Poland and Lithuania, and O’Leary says a great number of Ukrainian engineers work there, as well as IT people.
“Quite a few Ukrainian technicians and engineers work there, and they have shown themselves to be very good,” O’Leary said. Ukraine turns out good aviation specialists, and Ryanair “needs them,” he said.
“It would be at least logical to take advantage of the expertise of local specialists,” he said, and added that Ukraine has a great potential.
Some Ukrainian pilots and stewards have already been working for Ryanair, but the executive would like to hire more of them.
The airline is registered in Ireland and works according to Irish law, so to get a license, they have to comply with the European standards. (This is regulated by the European Aviation Safety Agency, in particular.) All non-European pilots – Ukrainians as well – have to undergo a “serious process” to get a license to pilot an aircraft.
But the Ryanair head said he hopes this won’t stop Ukrainian pilots from applying for a job at the airline, and there will be more people from here working for his low-cost airline, he said.
When it was revealed last year that Ryanair was canceling its previously announced plans to enter the Ukrainian market, Ukrainians reacted with anger and disappointment. Many felt that corruption and entrenched business interests were limiting their ability to take advantage of the country’s new visa-free regime with Schengen Area countries.
However, Ryanair announced on March 23 that it planned to introduce 15 new routes between Ukraine and cities in Europe. Ukraine’s Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan called the entry of the Irish company to Ukraine “the most important event for the national airspace in the past 20 years.”
Flights will begin in October and service in Kyiv and Lviv – from Boryspil and Lviv’s Danylo Halytskyi International Airport. The first available tickets for a flight to the United Kingdom’s capital London cost 44 euros; while flights to Barcelona, Spain, cost 94 euros.
Ukraine will become the lowcoster’s 36th destination.
According to reports, the current salary for Ryanair pilots (captains) is $190,000 a year; first officers earn $98,000 annually.
