Story ID: 556
Hullo Aircrew App Finds Unfilled Recruitment Niche
By: Ian Sheppard
Caption: Finding aircrew and, for aircrew, finding opportunties could be easier soon as Hull Aircrew launches its app at EBACE 2017.
Word Count: 346
Hullo Aircrew (Booth S51) is a new app designed to address problems operators have in recruiting suitable aircrew. “Operators struggle to find aircrew, while freelance aircrew struggle to find regular work as there is no one place for them to advertise availability,” said Keiron Blay, co-founder and CEO of Hullo Aircrew, which was launched in September 2016. “We’re [also] giving aircrew a PA in their pocket, with reminders on expiry dates [of licences, medicals etc]…we’ll be their back office.” Blay used to work for aircraft management and charter company Hangar8, which is now part of the Gama Aviation group.

Steve Payne, co-founder and COO of the company, told reporters at a briefing at Oxford Airport in the UK last month, “We already have more than 200 aircrew signed up. – There are no subscription fees for aircrew or operators, fees are only payable when a job booking is completed.” The aim is to have 500 pilots and cabin crew signed up by the end of the first year.

Hullo Aircrew operates an escrow account facility so that initial payments from operators to air crew can be paid this way. The fee for operators is 7 percent, which Payne argued is much cheaper than most recruitment agencies. The pilots are charged a small fee too.

Blay said the company anticipates a full launch of the app at the EBACE show in Geneva this week. It will start in Europe and go worldwide later, and will be aimed initially at business aviation only. The app will go on Apple's European app store first and later in the U.S. “We’re trying to be the one-stop-shop for pilots,” he said. Later enhancements could come through links with other platforms, such as an e-logbook

Where Hullo Aircrew could be really useful, said operations manager Edward Cousins, is if a pilot becomes ill and needs to be replaced by the operator at very short notice. The company has retained a lawyer so “at stage two, we may include a model [employment] contract.”