Chair and chief executive Sean Doyle made the comments to Bloomberg onboard BA’s first London-New York flight after restrictions on travel to the US were lifted.

"We’re actively recruiting," said Doyle. "It’s exciting to be rebuilding and creating opportunities after two years where we haven’t been able to fly much."

Doyle confirmed recruitment would span pilots, cabin crew, ground staff and back office roles, and would run to around 4,000 new posts, reversing some of the carrier’s pandemic-enforced staffing cuts.

It comes after BA parent IAG last week confirmed plans to up passenger capacity in the group’s fourth-quarter (three months to 31 December 2021) to "around 60% of 2019 capacity".

This would boost IAG’s total full-year capacity for 2021 to 37% of 2019 levels. The group has so far declined to give any concise outlook on its 2022 capacity plans, and what level of staffing increase it would require to achieve this.

In its consolidated third-quarter results, covering the period to 30 September, IAG revealed employee costs had decreased by €519 million (£444 million) compared with 2020, largely owing to the impact of its 2020 restructuring programmes, which cut staffing by around a quarter – 10,000 posts.

Last month, the Unite union said it understood BA was looking to hire around 3,000 new members of crew.

Earlier this week, there was a breakthrough in talks with the union over restoring a BA short-haul operation at Gatwick for summer 2022.