Manchester Airport Group: Keeping Britain Moving

Tight timelines. Thousands of passengers. Zero margin for error.

Behind every flight is a team that keeps it moving

MAG turned to Morson to source, screen, and onboard hundreds of skilled aviation professionals at speed – from baggage handlers and airfield engineers to customer experience specialists.

Our embedded delivery team built a recruitment engine that covered every step:

• Targeted sourcing of aviation-cleared candidates ready to deploy.
• Comprehensive pre-employment checks – including right-to-work, DBS, and five-year background screening for CAA compliance.
• Digital onboarding tools to accelerate start dates and reduce admin.
• Continuous candidate communication to improve retention and readiness.

In less than 12 weeks, we delivered over 400 compliant hires across MAG’s three major airports – seamlessly, safely, and at scale.

End-to-end talent delivery.

A challenge grounded in scale and speed

When the aviation industry reopened, passenger demand surged overnight.

The challenge? Scaling a workforce under tight compliance and even tighter deadlines.

Every hire required background checks, references, and airside clearance before starting. Any delay could mean grounded operations and lost revenue.

By embedding directly within MAG’s People and Operations teams, Morson became an extension of their workforce planning function – anticipating needs, mobilising at speed, and keeping critical paths clear.

We created one united delivery model across all airport sites, ensuring that recruitment, vetting, and onboarding worked in total sync.

Even the smoothest runway has turbulence.

Rebuilding the workforce that keeps Britain moving

MAG’s key challenges:

• Complex security clearance – five-year history, references, and identity checks for every candidate. 
• Market competition – huge demand for aviation talent across the UK. 
• Fixed start dates – training and induction cohorts had to begin together. 

How we solved it:

• Built a centralised screening hub with automated compliance tracking. 
• Implemented real-time dashboards for hiring visibility and progress reports. 
• Deployed dedicated local recruitment teams to tap into regional talent markets. 

With collaboration, focus, and precision, what began as a time-critical rebuild became a case study in operational excellence.

Powered by People. Driven by Precision.

Results that fly

• 400+ new hires placed across Manchester, East Midlands & Stansted in just 12 weeks

• 100% compliance with CAA and DfT aviation standards

• 50% faster time-to-hire compared to previous campaigns

• 85% retention rate within the first six months

• Zero operational downtime during rollout

Our partnership helped MAG get back to full flight – with a workforce built for consistency, safety, and service.

Always Recruiting. Always Ready.

Building a workforce ready for take-off

Together, we’ve created a smarter, more resilient recruitment model – one that scales with seasonal demand and strengthens MAG’s long-term talent strategy

“We have been through a number of operating and process changes, with RPOne proactively adopting, supporting and championing those changes. As a recruitment team, including volume hiring, non-volume hiring and interim solutions, we have on-boarded more than 3,000 people across our airports and the RPOne service has been invaluable to achieving this.

This hybrid recruitment model, which works extremely well, has delivered many benefits including reduced cost, increased MI and greater governance since implementing this four years ago, with further benefits to come as we move into a new phase of transformation at MAG.”
– Group Head of Recruitment (non-volume) at MAG

From ground handling to executive roles, we’re proud to power the people who keep Britain flying.