A group of 48 former Monarch Aircraft Engineering apprentices are being taken on by British Airways.
The apprentices from the engineering arm of the collapsed airline were invited to visit BA’s engineering base at Heathrow.
All 48 then accepted an offer to continue their apprenticeship with the airline, enabling them to complete aircraft maintenance qualifications.
BA also welcomes its first apprentice cabin crew this week as part of a drive to employ 2,000 in total this year.
The new cabin crew apprenticeship scheme will provide a further 1.600 apprenticeship positions in 2019.
Apprentices complete an intensive training course and then continue their training in the air and on the ground, with continuous support from a certified apprenticeship coach as part of the year-long scheme.
More than 100 places have been made available on one of the airline’s seven apprenticeship programmes.
These cover head office and customer service roles to engineering and operations.
BA engineering director Jason Mahoney said: “We’re committed to investing in the very best talent and are passionate about supporting development within the engineering community.
“Having met the apprentices and seeing how driven, hard-working and capable they are, I knew that they would be the perfect fit for our team. Helping them to qualify as aircraft engineers with British Airways is a fantastic outcome for everyone involved.”
Lee Rome, one of the former Monarch apprentices who will be joining BA, added: “We were all facing an uncertain future following the events that took place at Monarch in January.
“Myself, and many of my colleagues, felt our dreams of becoming qualified aircraft engineers slipping away. I couldn’t be more grateful to British Airways for taking us all on and allowing us to complete our apprenticeship.”
More: Hundreds of jobs lost as former Monarch maintenance arm collapses
