With leisure travel seen gaining momentum, Qatar Airways has started recruiting additional cabin crew, lounge staff and contact center employees in Manila, Cebu, Clark and Davao this month.
Qatar Airways chief customer experience officer Rossen Dimitrov told the Inquirer the airline aimed to hire a “significant number of staff from the Philippines” to meet the pent-up demand for travel.
“It (travel demand) will definitely bounce back and with the reopening of the Asia-Pacific and Southeast Asia region, we’re already seeing the return of leisure bookings,” he said.
In addition, Dimitrov said the airline could see more passengers traveling for business as they “are eager to get back to business as usual.”
Qatar Airways currently has 17 weekly flights for the Manila-Doha route; 7 weekly flights, Clark-Doha route; and 4 weekly flights, Cebu-Doha route.
Prior to the pandemic, the airline operated a once-weekly flight between Davao and Doha, which has since been suspended. Dimitrov said Qatar Airways would have to monitor and assess the demand first before resuming the route operation.
The airline official said Qatar Airways has continued operations despite the pandemic, flying 580,000 passengers in and out of the country between March 2020 and December 2021.
Customer-centric
The Qatar flag carrier offers unlimited date and destination changes, as well as refund in case of flight cancellation due to COVID-19 restrictions.
“Our strategy has always been clear since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic: it is to be as customer-centric as possible because we understand how fluid the pandemic situation is,” Dimitrov said.
“Qatar Airways will monitor closely and evaluate its business strategy in order to cope with the ever-changing travel demand and be prepared to meet global travel demand as the travel industry recovers,” he added.
The airline is also bullish on its cargo operations after transporting over 250,000 tons of medical and aid supplies across the globe last year.
It currently has up to 180 dedicated cargo flights per day.
“[We] have definitely seen increasing demand for airfreight services, especially the increasingly needed capacity to support the COVID-19 vaccination, which is projected to be one of the greatest logistical challenges for the industry,” he said. INQ