Hundreds seek jobs with new airline

Hundreds of resumes, most of them from Las Vegas, have flooded the headquarters of National Airlines.

In a few weeks, a team of senior managers will begin sifting through them to find the first hires for a Las Vegas work force that could eventually reach 2,200.

For now, there are just five.

Dik Shimizu, director of corporate communication for National, said 20 senior officers have been hired and will join the company in September. Those managers will review resumes, set up interviews and begin the process of building a staff, from the pilots that will fly the Boeing 757s to clerical workers who will operate in the airline's administrative office.

Shimizu said nearly all of the Las Vegas station employees would work directly for the airline. That includes baggage handlers, light-maintenance mechanics, accounting, marketing and finance workers and clerical help. All customer-service representatives in every city to be served by National will be company employees. At start-up, that means employees in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and Miami.

But some of the ramp help and maintenance crews in outlying cities will be contracted as will heavy maintenance. In addition, Shimizu said an outside call center probably would be contracted for booking reservations.

Toward the end of 1998, National expects to have its flight crews on line so they can be certified by federal aviation authorities.

Shimizu said he doesn't have an exact count of the number of resumes on file, but that he has received hundreds of resumes from pilots, flight attendants, mechanics and clerical workers who have previous experience with airlines, some of which are now defunct.

Some resumes have come from corporate executives that have no airline experience, but have managerial backgrounds and wanted to change course, Shimizu said.

While most of the resumes are from Las Vegas, some have come from Florida, the Southeast and the Northwest.

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