53-14-38

Company Description

Porter Airlines has revolutionized short-haul flying with a warm and effortless approach to hospitality, restoring glamour and refinement to air travel. Porter is an Official 4 Star Airline® in the World Airline Star Rating®.

The airline currently offers flights to Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City, Fredericton, Saint John, Moncton, Halifax, St. John’s, Stephenville, N.L,  Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Sudbury, Timmins, Windsor, New York (Newark), Chicago (Midway), Boston and Washington (Dulles), and has seasonal flights to Mt. Tremblant, Que., Muskoka, Ont., and Myrtle Beach, S.C.

Job Description

The Director, Catering Operations is a member of the Airport Operations leadership team that is responsible for Porter’s passenger service and ground handling. 

The Director provides leadership for all aspects of Porter’s catering operations. Is accountable for achieving consistent service execution to defined standards. Eliminates barriers to reduce catering delays and works cross-functionally to reduce system delays. Works diligently to achieve a safe and accident-free operation. Regularly engages with leaders and team members to foster their commitment to Porter’s success. Meets defined financial performance targets. Constantly seeks ways to drive operational efficiency while supporting team members and passengers. 

Works cross-functionally and with stakeholders outside the Porter organization to ensure catering team members have the necessary tools, training, processes and resources to achieve the team’s targets and metrics. 

Is responsible for building and sustaining a high-performance culture of teamwork and commitment to service and operational reliability in the Catering department, with significant focus on actively developing the leadership capabilities of the group’s leadership team, from leads to managers. 

The Director is regularly engaged in operations across stations that uplift catering supplies, with a focus on observing procedural compliance to ensure third party service providers are performing in accordance with service level agreements. 

The Director will initially build the Catering department to support Porter’s growth strategy and onboard service offering. To do so, the Director will propose the department’s structure, operational deployment model for hub airports, determine which spoke airports require catering services to reprovision aircraft and how that will be conducted, develop the department’s operational processes and training, and identify and source the equipment, resources, and vendors required to successfully launch this new operation. 

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES: 

  • Leads Porter’s aircraft catering at all airports, including financial oversight and operations.

  • Leads the catering team to deliver safe and reliable operational performance of the catering function to enable consistent delivery of defined in-flight service standards, proper maintenance of all catering-related equipment and proper inventory management. 

  • Ensures all health and safety and food safety requirements are met. 

  • Collaborates with In-Flight, Marketing, and Commercial Services teams to select, source, and deliver the onboard service offering to our passengers. 

  • Develops, updates, and maintains an inventory management system for all catering products to minimize food waste and storage footprint, and to establish proper financial controls and reporting. 

  • Actively works to reduce the cost per passenger of Porter’s onboard service offering while maintaining menu quality. 

  • Actively works to reduce the weight of catering products and equipment onboard the aircraft. 

  • Maximizes buy on board revenue and profitability. 

  • Determines which stations in the network require catering services to reprovision the aircraft. Evaluates, recommends, and implements the best approach to deliver these services. 

  • Collaborates with Manager, Airport Operations Process Excellence to develop, maintain, and continuously improve the Catering Operations Manual. 

  • Collaborates with Manager, Learning and Development to develop, maintain, continuously improve, and deliver training to the Catering team. 

  • Manages Porter’s china inventory to ensure that it is properly distributed and balanced throughout the network so that every flight receives its required allotment of clean dishware. 

  • As part of the regular course business, is engaged with the team 50% of his/her time, to develop talent skills, including operational decision-making, leadership effectiveness, results focus, critical thinking, adherence to standards, and problem solving. 

  • Ensures third party suppliers that support Catering achieve financial, operational and passenger service targets and seeks ways to contain and/or reduce these costs over time while maintaining those targets. 

  • Works closely with People & Culture to proactively manage all aspects of team member resources to maintain the trained headcount needed to support operational reliability and service targets while ensuring the most efficient scheduling of resources that achieves budgeted labour costs. 

  • Works with Porter GSE maintenance and third party suppliers to ensure ground service equipment (GSE) are properly maintained, safe and reliable to support catering operations. Develops near-term and long-term fleet plans, including operational and CAPEX budgets.

  • Conducts regular (weekly) operational metric and business reviews with the team to maintain operational performance, identify trends for corrective action and proactively manage human resource issues. 

  • Establishes, monitors, and enforces catering practices to ensure compliance with health and food safety regulatory standards and guidelines. 

  • Conducts regular (quarterly) reviews of team member performance, including objective setting, performance evaluation, and professional development plans. Recognizes successes, builds action plans for opportunities, manages leadership talent pipeline for succession planning. 

  • Establishes business cases for the necessary investments to reach and sustain operational performance. 

  • Handles special assignments related to business development, long range planning and other strategic opportunities. 

  • Develops and maintains a climate that attracts, retains, and motivates top talent; ensures proper succession planning and talent development for airline’s mission critical roles. 

  • Actively participates in Porter’s Safety Management System (SMS) including reporting hazards and incidents encountered in daily operations; understands and promotes the Company’s Safety Policy. 

BEHAVIOURAL COMPETENCIES: 

  • Concern for Safety: Identifying hazardous or potentially hazardous situations and taking appropriate action to maintain a safe environment for self and others. 

  • Teamwork: Working collaboratively with others to achieve organizational goals. 

  • Passenger/Customer Service: Providing service excellence to internal and/or external customers (passengers). 

  • Initiative: Dealing with situations and issues proactively and persistently, seizing opportunities that arise. 

  • Results Focus: Focusing efforts on achieving high quality results consistent with the organization’s standards. 

  • Fostering Communication: Listening and communicating openly, honestly, and respectfully with different audiences, promoting dialogue and building consensus.

  • Exemplifying Integrity: Treating others fairly, honestly, and respectfully, furthering the integrity of the organization and its relationships of trust with team members and the broader community. 

  • Inspiring Others: Energizing and inspiring others to strive for excellence and commit to common goals and purposes, creating a sense of self-efficacy, resilience, and persistence in followers. 

  • People Leadership: Assuming a leadership role in helping others achieve excellent results. 

  • Leading Change: Recognizing the need for change, being open to new ideas and methods, and championing transformational change within the organization and beyond. 

QUALIFICATIONS: 

  • University degree 

  • 10 years operations management / catering / food distribution experience

  • Food safety certification 

  • Technologically savvy 

  • Excellent interpersonal and leadership skills 

  • Able to effectively plan and manage resources 

  • High standard of personal integrity 

  • Superior oral and written communication skills 

  • Proficient in Google office suite 

  • Able to hold all required security clearances 

  • Able to communicate and correspond clearly and precisely in English 

LOCATION: Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport - YTZ
We are sorry, but this opportunity is no longer available.
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