easyJet has today announced that it will be launching a recruitment campaign called "For the love of Flying" to attract up to 450 new pilots at the beginning of June.

This will be the largest recruitment drive in the airline's history - an increase on the record 426 recruited last year. Opportunities range from cadet pilots starting their career to experienced co-pilots and Captains from other airlines and the military. All will receive access to high quality training and a range of career development opportunities.

easyJet currently employs over 3000 pilots who fly more than 265 Airbus aircraft on over 870 routes in 31 countries and new recruits will join the airline at an exciting time of continued growth. In the coming year easyJet is creating new pilot positions at all of its bases. In the UK these are at London Gatwick, London Luton, London Stansted, London Southend, Bristol, Newcastle, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Belfast, Manchester and Liverpool.

Around 300 of the new roles will be for cadet pilots and there will be a particular focus on recruiting more female pilots as part of easyJet's Amy Johnson initiative.

Captain Brian Tyrrell, easyJet's Head of Flight Operations, said today:

"We're really pleased that we will be opening recruitment for up to 450 new easyJet pilot positions in a couple of weeks time."

"At easyJet, we pride ourselves on having a team of the highest talent and we offer our pilots a clear career path with the opportunity to develop from First Officer to Captain quicker than at other airlines."

"This is an exciting time to join easyJet as we continue to grow and develop to maintain our position as Europe's leading airline and I look forward to welcoming the successful applicants in the near future."

A pilot's career at easyJet

In the initial stages of a new pilot's career, the first step towards joining easyJet will usually be through the airline's training partners CTC Aviation, CAE and FTE Jerez. The pilots will gain experience of the airline's operations and build up their flying hours.

Once they have completed as least 12 months, pilots then join easyJet as permanent employees at Second Officer rank for a further 12 months. After flying for a further two years with easyJet as a First Officer, pilots will then become a Senior First Officer. From that stage the aim is to achieve their Command and become Captains. With easyJet's continued planned growth the time taken from First Officer to Captain is likely to be quicker than at other airlines.

Beyond this there are further opportunities for pilots to develop their career whether that is into a training or management role.

easyJet's Amy Johnson initiative

Only 3% of commercial airline pilots worldwide are female and only 450 of them have achieved the rank of captain* - which means every female captain could fit onto an A380 aircraft.

In the year ending September 2015, women made up 6% of easyJet's new pilot intake and 5% of its total pilot community. The airline currently has 164 female pilots in total, of whom 62 are Captains - around 14% of the world's total.

In October 2015 easyJet launched its Amy Johnson Flying Initiative with the aim of doubling the number of female new entrant pilots to 12% over two years.

The initiative was really successful with over 600 applicants and so easyJet was able to achieve the 12% target in year one - recruiting 33 female new entrant pilots. These women have either started to fly with easyJet or are assigned to courses due to start in the coming weeks.

Encouraged by this success, easyJet has now set itself a more stretching target of ensuring that 20% of new entrant cadet pilots recruited by easyJet in 2020 are female. Based on current recruitment plans this would mean that easyJet would be recruiting around 50 female pilots a year which will really start to change the face of the industry. This is a long term strategy, which is hoped will eventually lead to easyJet recruiting, retaining and developing many more female pilots.