Delta Air Lines is hiring up to 400 flight attendants, including those with foreign language skills.
Atlanta-based Delta said it has received about 22,000 applications since it posted the positions a week ago, and has been receiving about two applications a minute. The company is not yet saying where the flight attendants will be based.
The job openings include flight attendant “language of destination” positions for those who speak Portuguese, Japanese, Mandarin, Hindi and French. Delta will keep those job listings open until the positions are filled.
Even though Delta does not expect to increase its flying next year, it continues to look abroad to bring in more revenue. Delta this month announced it is acquiring a 49 percent stake in Virgin Atlantic and plans to strike a joint venture with the U.K.-based carrier.
“We’re hunting for foreign language speakers as we continue to expand to all points around the globe,” said Delta chief executive Richard Anderson in a message to employees.
The airline is also hiring flight attendants who speak English only. Applications for those jobs are due by Dec. 26.
Delta cut its work force by about 2,000 through early retirement offers earlier this year. Now, the airline is preparing for a busy summer season. “We’ll need a few hundreds new flight attendants for our peak season next year,” Anderson said.
The jobs come with monthly training pay of $1,746 — their regular pay varies with the number of flights they make. Training is expected to take eight weeks. Delta plans to hire for the positions in January, with the idea that the new hires would begin flying in June.
In 2010, Delta filled about 1,000 flight attendant positions and received more than 100,000 applications.
Delta has its largest hub in Atlanta. It also operates hubs in New York, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Detroit, Salt Lake City, Memphis and Cincinnati, Amsterdam, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Tokyo-Narita.
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