Ryanair seeks 3,500 staff ahead of fleet expansion

Ryanair says it is creating 3,500 jobs as it prepares to expand its fleet of aircraft over the next 12 months.

The no-frills carrier said it would be hiring 2,000 cabin crew and 1,000 pilots.

Other roles included in the recruitment drive were engineers. The company added that a range of support jobs were also planned for its Dublin office.

It said the new jobs would be spread "throughout Ryanair's 84-base European network."

But, in response to a query from Sky News, it also confirmed new roles across the UK despite declaring last month that each of the 50 new planes entering its fleet would be housed outside the UK .

Ryanair - a fierce critic of Brexit during the referendum campaign- had blamed the result for its investment decision last month while forecasting a slowdown in its growth.

Then, the company's chief executive Michael O'Leary had described the politicians taking the UK out of the EU as "headless chickens".

He said: "We're being very cautious about the amount of capacity we're allocating to the UK over the next two or three years until we get some kind of indication of what Brexit will look like.

"It's not because we're annoyed or anything with the UK, but we have much more political certainty in continental Europe than we have in the UK while they're all running around trying to work out what Brexit looks like."

Ryanair said on Tuesday it would be employing new cabin crew at each of its UK bases.

The carrier, which currently employs 11,500 staff, is aiming to have a fleet of over 500 aircraft over the next five years - up from the current level of 355.

It made the jobs announcement after confirming a 13% rise in customer numbers in September.