Faced with unprecedented labor needs, Aéroports de Montréal (ADM) wants to avoid reliving the summer 2022 scenario. For the first time, the organization is holding, from Thursday to Friday, an job to recruit workers at Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau.
The high season begins at the end of June and at least 250 jobs considered critical are to be filled to operate the various services of the airport, the majority run by partner companies. Thus, around twenty exhibitors are trying to convince a small crowd of curious people to apply to them, with the help of leaflets and promotional items, such as stress balls in the shape of a cup of coffee.
“We want to make sure we have the right people in the right places to have relatively fast and smooth baggage delivery, to have people in the morning very early to serve coffee to passengers,” says Anne-Sophie Hamel, spokesperson. for ADM, in the sunny mezzanine near gate 10 of the airport.
Many travelers no doubt remember the monster queues and the chaos in baggage management during the last summer season. However, ADM expects even higher ridership this year. Despite this, M.me Hamel believes the industry is better positioned than last year to avoid disaster.
“Last year was a broken industry on every level, globally and here. She got up, things were settled, ”says Mme Hamel, admitting that passengers will still have to be patient during peak periods.
At Avjet, the hiring challenge has been “monstrous” in the past year, according to its CEO, Denis Jacob. The company provides employees who check in passengers, clean planes and handle baggage for several airlines such as Transat, Sunwing, KLM and Air France.
“In 2022, we hired 1,000 people and we kept 500,” explained Mr. Jacob. Last summer, Mr. Jacob felt that he did not have enough staff to meet the needs. Right now it has 950 employees and is looking for another 100.
To attract and retain candidates, wages and working conditions have also been significantly increased in several companies linked to the airport.