Operations Management on the Airport Perimeter. In-flight Catering and Services

Academic Paper from the year 2019 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 69, language: English, abstract: This paper refers to a catering supplier called creative catering Ltd. (CC), based in Basel, Switzerland. In 2015, they opened a new branch called "In-flight Services and Catering" (ISC), providing services to the in-flight industry. ISC serves on a high-class level to private, corporate, governmental and royal customers from an international setting with multicultural backgrounds who do not have a local airline service for their needs. ISC cannot be compared to the more basic services provided on first-class charter flights (CF), because it provides to a smaller audience focusing much more on individual needs than a CF. ISC is delivering up to four flights a day, to small business jets and wide-body long-haul aircraft. In 2018 the ISC generated a revenue of CHF 280,000 which is about a fourth of the CC total income. The combination of services and goods provided by ISC in relation with the difficult forecasting situation will be discussed thoroughly throughout the paper. This difficult relationship shows how important a clearly defined operations management and process setup is. Catering is the largest part of the branch, therefore, this paper mainly considers the in-flight catering sector with its process of the ordering system, discussing the vulnerability and challenges within the system and analysing a lean approach to improve its performance and evaluate new findings.