Technical, but not the details

It’s not only that airBaltic’s fleet is growing; as of January 2024, the company employs more than 2500 people, its highest number of employees ever. And it’s up to airBaltic’s Human Resources (HR) department to make sure that existing vacancies at the airline are filled, that trends in the market are being followed, and that airBaltic continues to attract the best talent well into the future. One of the fastest-growing, and most challenging, areas at the airline is the technical department, and that comes under Inese Rājeva’s wing.

In this conversation, Rājeva also shares great news about a project airBaltic is working on, namely, the opening of the Technical Academy to ensure enough professionals for aircraft maintenance.

What are your responsibilities in airBaltic’s HR department?

The HR team – where I’ve been working for a relatively short time, only for the past two years – is big, not only in terms of the number of employees, but also in terms of capacity and experience. I learn a lot from my colleagues. I support the Technical department in the area of human resources. My main role is to help the department build its people capability by shaping the optimal people strategies and culture. At the same time, I also work in close partnership with managers to solve day-to-day people issues and questions. Encouraging openness and nurturing meaningful relationships is essential in this role.

The HR Business Partner also helps the company understand its future needs in relation to recruiting employees, incorporates these needs into its vision for the future, and aids their implementation. This is how, for example, the Sky Tech Apprenticeship program, launched last June, was born.

Tell us more about this program.

With the planned growth of airBaltic’s fleet, we’ll need a significant number of technical staff: mechanics, technicians, engineers. And looking to the future, the first step is to create interest among young people, to make them aware of all the job opportunities at airBaltic, and to attract them as soon as possible. Before the Sky Tech Apprenticeship program, we worked more individually with interested candidates, but now we approach them in a structured, planned way.

Second, we have a good and wide-ranging collaboration with higher education institutions, including Riga Technical University (RTU). To raise awareness about the Sky Tech Apprenticeship program, we organised an aviation hackathon at RTU last May. It was a very interesting experience. The young people had the opportunity to work on various aviation-related problems and present themselves to a potential employer, whereas we saw how they work, listened to their ideas, and gave feedback. One of the prizes for the most promising students was an invitation to join the Sky Tech Apprenticeship program.

But of course, all of this is not a one-person job. As I already mentioned, airBaltic has a very strong HR team that includes a talent acquisition team, with whom we work to attract talent.

How long does it take to become an aircraft technician?

A long time. It takes about five years to progress from a mechanic to a technician. We maintain our own aircraft and depend entirely on our own technicians. But logistics and planning specialists and engineers are just as important. At the moment, the exact sciences are not so popular in Latvia, so we have to work hard to build interest in them.

I think being a technician is a fantastic profession, and you can work in it your whole life; it’s a very stable profession in every sense. In the few years that I’ve been at airBaltic, we’ve had some very experienced colleagues retire – people who worked in aviation for almost their entire lives. For HR professionals, it’s a rewarding moment to see that a person has spent their entire working life in a place they love, doing a job they love.

My next question is about the ability to predict future trends and needs that will be relevant in two, three, or five years. Of course, the increasing number of aircraft in the fleet and the corresponding need for more flight crew and technicians is one aspect, but what else do you take into account?

This question requires a slightly broader answer, beyond the context of aviation. I’ve been in HR for more than 15 years, and a lot has changed in that time. Young people are making choices differently than they used to, and few of them are interested in technical work, because for some reason it seems less attractive. In addition, the knowledge required for those jobs equals almost that of a doctor.

But even more important are demographic issues and an ageing population. I’m convinced that artificial intelligence and digitalisation processes can help to address this. But many people are very frightened that AI will take jobs away from people – that’s the most popular point of view. However, I believe that it will actually just fill the positions that are missing.

Back to predictions. I’m not afraid to admit that there’ve been times when I’ve sensed trends with something almost like a sixth sense. That said, it’s also very important to consider demographics and sustainability, to be in touch with direct managers and industry experts, and to keep abreast of global changes (including in aviation) as well as the latest technologies. Because one person alone cannot know everything. And then, after connecting all the dots, you can interpret the information, see the opportunities, and decide to work in a particular direction.

You mentioned that you’ve only been with airBaltic for a few years. What attracted you to the company?

I have a background in banking, retail, and the entertainment industry, and more specifically in film, which are all very different. But I was definitely longing for bigger and deeper waters. The airBaltic HR team itself and the opportunities within that team are almost limitless. It’s no coincidence that I said at the beginning that this HR team is not only big but also very capable and strong. It can do disruptive things, in the very best sense of this word (laughs)!

Like cinema, where I worked before, the field of aviation is magical. It’s explainable by the laws of physics, but it’s nevertheless a magical environment. And when I need an energy boost, I just observe our maintenance team in action. It brings me immense satisfaction to witness how we fulfil the dreams or needs of others to reach incredible destinations.

What things are you working on at the moment, as you think about the future?

Apart from our collaboration with universities and attracting existing students, which is very important for us, one big project we’ve begun working on and which I hope will see the light of day soon is the airBaltic Technical Academy. That is, we want to not only rely on external resources but also train the technicians we’ll need ourselves. And probably not only technicians.

We want to help people enter the field of aviation more easily. And we want to show everyone that, no matter where you are in life, it’s possible to change your career. We’ve developed a roadmap of what positions one can enter at airBaltic, and how to get into them, because there are instruments and tools to achieve everything. Of course, you have to be willing to learn and invest your time, but you can count on our support.

The Technical Academy is a big and time-consuming project for the company that involves a big investment in students, so HR also plays a major role in making potential employees want to stay here and work with us.

The possibility of changing one’s occupation at any time seems exciting.

Yes, it is! In our technical department, for example, we’ve got quite a few employees who’ve come to airBaltic from the field of auto mechanics, without any experience in aviation. But they, too, can train and become excellent aircraft technicians.

And I’d like to emphasise that we recruit both men and women for these positions. I’m pleased to see that more and more women are joining our maintenance team. We offer the opportunity to apply for a job with us regardless of age or gender, and to go through training step by step and work for airBaltic. Change is always possible.