Crew Workforce Planning Manager

Contract: Permanent

Hours: Full time, 37.5 per week, Monday – Friday.

Location: VHQ, Crawley. Hybrid remote working, with 3 days a week based on operational requirements

Closing Date: 9th January 2025

At Virgin Atlantic Airways, we believe that everyone can take on the world, and it's our vision to become the most loved travel company. As we embark on this next exciting stage of our journey, we're harnessing our spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation to challenge the status quo.

Join our team of forward-thinkers who approach the world with a different lens! We value individuals who are vocal about driving positive change and are willing to dive into both big and small tasks. If you're ready to take your career to new heights, this opportunity is for you.

In a nutshell

We’re on the lookout for a Crew Workforce Planning Manager to join our brilliant Crew Logistics team, a crucial part of our operation. In this role, you’ll take the lead in shaping the workforce plan for our Pilots and Cabin Crew.

Reporting directly to our Head of Crew Logistics, you’ll be at the helm of planning our strategic flight and cabin crew establishment, as well as overseeing recruitment and training requirements. It’s a fantastic opportunity to make a real impact in a role that’s integral to keeping our teams and our airline flying high!

Day to day

You’ll collaborate closely with Flight Crew Management, Cabin Crew Management, Commercial teams, and the FlyRed process to ensure our flying programme is perfectly resourced, optimised, and efficient, all within FTL, Industrial, and FRM guidelines. This includes balancing the right mix of fleet and ranks across crew bases and defining fully optimised flying patterns (pairings) to keep our operations running smoothly. You will also:

• Ensure timely high-quality handover into training planning and rostering process.
• Creation of crew trip pairings to FTL, FRM Industrial and other planning parameters.
• Proactively seek solutions to establishment challenges, working closely with operations and commercial.
• Lead on establishment inputs into budget and re forecasting process.
• Develop long term workforce planning models that can provide quick insights and align to broader operations planning tools and commercial flying programmes.
• Lead, develop and motivate a team of Analysts to deliver high quality outputs.

About you

Are you highly analytical and do you thrive from working strategically? To succeed in this role, you will need:

• Experience of workforce planning within a large operational and regulated environment (airline industry would be desirable).
• Ability to build effective relationships and influence stakeholders at senior level.
• Proven people management skills with the ability to motivate and develop a team.
• Experience of working as part of cross-functional teams and balancing different needs.
• Advanced knowledge of Microsoft Excel.

Data visualisation tools (such as PowerBI) and working knowledge of crew management systems (preferably AIMS and Jeppesen) is desirable. If this sounds like you then we would love to hear from you!

Interviews will be held week commencing 20th January 2025.

Our recipe for leadership

At Virgin Atlantic, our leaders empower teams to thrive through collaboration, innovation, and excellence. Explore our Leadership Recipe and discover the 20 core ingredients that define what it means to lead with us, driving our mission to be the most loved travel company and achieve sustainable profit. Want to learn more? Click here

Be yourself

Our customers come from all walks of life and so do our colleagues. That’s why we’re proud to be an equal opportunity employer and actively encourage applications from all backgrounds. At Virgin Atlantic, we believe everyone can take on the world - no matter your age, gender, gender identity, gender expression, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disabilities, religion, or beliefs. We celebrate difference and everything that makes our colleagues unique by upholding an inclusive environment in which we can all thrive. So that everyone at Virgin Atlantic can be themselves and know they belong.

To make your journey with us accessible and individual to you, we encourage you to let us know if you’d like a little extra help with your application, or if you have any individual requirements at any stage along your recruitment journey. We are here to support you, so please reach out to our team, (recruitment@fly.virgin.com) feeling confident that we’ve got your individual considerations covered.