State airline Aeroflot is set to take advantage of a new law that it initiated by hiring 26 foreign pilots, company head Vitaly Saveliyev said Tuesday, Interfax reported.
Aeroflot has decided to take on 176 of the 600 foreign pilots it interviewed, most of whom are European, and is ready to conclude contracts with 26 of them today, Saveliyev told reporters at the Farnborough International Airshow in England, an event that many representatives of Russian companies were barred from attending by the British Foreign Office due to Russia's actions in Ukraine.
Russian airlines had been forbidden from employing foreign pilots, but in April, President Vladimir Putin signed a law letting them to collectively hire up to 200 foreign pilots per year over the next five years to compensate for the domestic shortage of skilled personnel.
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