Edinburgh Airport

Edinburgh International Airport's multicultural Welcome Team plays a key role in welcoming overseas visitors to the capital and helping passengers with enquiries at check in and security search.

Based in the airport terminal, this 20-strong group of customer-facing staff currently features several nationalities from countries including Poland, Nigeria, Kenya and Australia as well as England and Scotland.

One of the Welcome Team members is Joanna Sakowicz, a 25-year old Polish graduate from the south of Poland who speaks fluent Polish and English as well as basic German and Spanish. She came to Scotland last year to develop her career prospects and widen her skills after studying finance, international trade and logistics in Poland.

"I enjoy working at the airport because I am proud to be part of the team," Joanna said. "Many of my colleagues are also multilingual and we use our language skills to communicate with passengers who don't speak English. Sometimes people not used to travelling in the UK are confused by the process of checking-in or the security rules – we can help them out and make them feel welcome in Scotland".

Jackie Shuttleworth, PR Manager for BAA Edinburgh Airport, said "As an airport with a fast growing international route network and ever-increasing passenger numbers, we are welcoming people from a widening number of countries all over the world.

"It's important for us to deliver excellent customer service to our passengers, and one way we do that is through our Welcome Team, who are on the front line. Many members of the team are from overseas and bring a multicultural feel to our airport."

Edinburgh Airport serves more than 50 international destinations and has seen passenger numbers climb 154% in the last ten years to more than 8.5 million. Numbers are forecast to reach 26 million by 2030.

Dave Gilchrist, the airport's HR Manager, said: "We've found that having people from different backgrounds brings different ideas and slants on things, particularly when we've got a large scale event like a football international.

"A couple of months ago when we had Spanish supporters coming in, the Welcome Team gave a really useful insight into the needs and wants of these passengers, which were different from UK passengers. That helped us tailor our service quite a bit. It's not just about language – the greater the mix and diversity of our workforce, the more tolerant and understanding they are of the many different nationalities using the airport."

Contact

Edinburgh Airport
Careers
EH12 9DN
Scotland
UK
Tel: +44 (0)141 585 6000
Email: BusinessSupportCentre@baa.com