The aviation supply chain is comprised of several categories such as maintenance materials, replacement parts, and in-flight meals. The flight catering industry is a significant global activity with an estimated size of 12 million euros with over a million passengers served by flight catering each year (Souza Vaz et al., 2016). It employs various stakeholders’ services to facilitate safety storage, preparation, and quality assurance of all products served to the passengers. According to Souza Vaz et al. (2016), the flight catering industry involves both cooking and logistics, with the latter taking 80 percent of operations. Food safety is given the highest priority since a slight quality compromise would have tragic consequences.
The flight caterers order food products directly from supplies instead of distributors. Suppliers assure flight caterers of a constant and high-quality supply of food products in addition to maintaining a preferred brand. Trolleys are loaded onto the aircraft using high-loader trucks. The food is usually ordered in large quantities to ensure consistent availability of food. Once the products are loaded onto the aircraft, they are stowed for the security of passengers, the caterers, and the microbial safety of edible products.
Meals are stored in galley carts and carriers with dry ice to ensure that the food maintains the accepted temperature for consumption. Food safety and integrity are the key considerations in meal storage and preparation. Airline caterers prepare food in large quantities, making safe storage vital. The accepted temperature food zone ranges between 5 degrees Celsius and 57 degrees Celsius (Souza Vaz et al., 2016). Beyond this temperature, the food may cause adverse effects on passengers’ health.
After preparation, food is assembled, packaged, and taken to the aircraft, where it is immediately put in galleys to maintain the warm temperature of the food until served. In-flight food preparation follows carefully-designed procedures with risk assessment done on vendors (Souza Vaz et al., 2016). Costs involved in in-flight food preparation involve the purchase of food supplies and storage. The airline companies minimize costs by outsourcing some of their operations, such as inventory management and purchasing directly from the suppliers.
Reference
Souza Vaz, D., Nobre, I. C., Rodrigues, E. F., & Kawamoto Junior, L. T. (2016). Quality HACCP applied to flight catering industry.Independent Journal of Management & Production, 7(5), 729.