It’s been a busy past few years for Air Culinaire. While the world has grappled with the Covid pandemic, the Universal Weather and Aviation subsidiary, which operates 23 kitchens in the U.S. and Europe, has been expanding many of its facilities in the face of increased activity.

“Our business in 2021 and 2022 increased by 30 percent over 2019,” said Paul Schweitzer, the company’s senior v-p for global sales and marketing. “Our demand mirrors the [private] jet demand, which has been astronomical. We probably have had the highest volume of demand that we’ve ever had for the longest period of time.”

While most of the upgrades were in the planning phase before the start of the pandemic, the timing was perfect as the enhanced locations were able to better meet the needs of the subsequent surge in private aviation.

Last year, the company more than doubled the size of its Seattle location when it moved from a facility at the Modern Aviation FBO at Boeing Field/King County International Airport (KBFI) into a 4,300-sq-ft facility midway between KBFI and Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. In Chicago, it relocated from a 2,700-sq-ft facility to one within two miles of Chicago O’Hare International Airport, resulting in a 4,800-sq-ft increase, while in Denver and Washington, D.C., renovations of Air Culinaire’s existing kitchens increased their size by 900 and 500 sq ft, respectively.

Among the recently completed expansions, the most strategic was the relocation of its Teterboro, New Jersey location in May. The flagship of the company’s service kitchen network, it moved from South Hackensack to within three blocks of bustling corporate business aviation hub Teterboro Airport (KTEB). An existing warehouse was entirely gutted and repurposed, giving the staff 17,000 sq ft of space.

According to Erick Arce, the facility’s senior general manager, the previous facility could fit in the loading dock at the new building. “One of the biggest improvements is the fact that we were able to create departments for each individual section of the kitchen that we needed to have a department for,” said Arce during a recent visit by AIN. “We have our hot kitchen, we have the expediting station, we also have the cold side of the line station, storage, all of the things that we needed, we were able to fill in immediately.”

Aside from the spacious entry lobby—which includes several offices, a reception area, and a conference room—all other areas in the facility were built with insulated panels that can support refrigeration. “What that means is any room you will see, all we have to do is slap a compressor unit in it and change the door so that it seals and it now is a refrigerator,” said Arce. “The idea is that at some point in the future, we can make the entire facility refrigerated depending on business need.”

The KTEB facility is also the first in the company network to have all of its refrigerators monitored through online sensors. Any deviation in temperature immediately results in warning notifications sent to staff members.

Its KTEB location services 14 area airports, including Newark, Morristown, Essex County, LaGuardia, John F. Kennedy International, Republic, Long Island MacArthur, and all the way out to Westhampton Beach on the Eastern end of Long Island. While Teterboro, Newark, and Morristown see continual catering deliveries throughout the day, a daily run to New York and the Long Island airports leaves around 4 a.m. to cater to the early morning departing flights. That ride, in one of the provider’s refrigerated vans, can take up to an hour and 45 minutes to hit all the stops along the way.

To keep the FBOs informed of the arrival of catering, expeditors working in the kitchen can use a GPS-based system to track each vehicle on an electronic map to its precise location and speed. Prior to being loaded for delivery, the expeditor takes a photo of each order as proof that it was fulfilled correctly. Those photos are saved and cataloged for future reference.

The Teterboro facility provides catering to 14 airports, ranging as far as East Hampton Airport at the end of Long Island. Each morning the company's refrigerated vans make an early eastward delivery run through the New York area. (Photo: Curt Epstein/AIN)

According to executive chef Salvatore Lano, the kitchen, which is staffed and in operation 24/7, generally works half a day in advance to prepare orders. Meals that will go out on the morning delivery run will be prepared the evening before.

While as much advance notification as possible is appreciated, the KTEB location is used to working on short deadlines. A recent extreme example: an order was placed for four hot chicken entrees along with a fruit display for a flight due wheels up from Teterboro in a mere 20 minutes

Lano and his sous-chef immediately sprang into action, commandeering several dishes that were already being prepared, along with a fruit tray that had just been finished. The entrees were finished to order, swiftly cooled in the blast chiller, packed, and delivered to the FBO just in time to be loaded onboard ahead of takeoff.

Though Lano has curated several menus, he encourages their use merely as “guidelines” and notes that clients request everything from hors d’oeuvres and filet mignon to hotdogs and chicken fingers. “Anybody can order anything they want,” he told AIN. “They’ll just tell us what they want, and we have to figure it out.”

Most dishes present little difficulty for the experienced kitchen staff, which can source even the most exotic ingredients from the many local grocery stores and ones in nearby New York City. Such ingredients are frequently needed, because the facility’s multinational customers order a wide variety of ethnic dishes. Some even request menu items from a favorite restaurant, which the Air Culinaire staff will order, pick up, safely pack for travel, and deliver. While the hot kitchen is kept busy, Arce explained that cold food makes up much of the requests. “The easiest thing to order is sandwiches and salads,” he said.

Outside of simply preparing and delivering food, the KTEB facility offers full concierge service, with shoppers available to purchase special orders and couriers to deliver them. “As long as it’s legal, we’re going to buy it and get it for you no matter what it is,” said Arce.

Among the more memorable items is a bale of hay for a customer looking to transport a small horse aboard their aircraft, 20 Apple iPhones, $900 pillowcases, and fully decorated Christmas trees complete with wrapped presents. The company also regularly supplies dry ice for organ transport flights, as well as food for the accompanying doctors, who may not have had time to eat for many hours.

By the end of this year, the company’s Miami facility will also undergo an expansion from 2,700 sq ft to 6,400 sq ft, and its Dallas location will move from its long-time home at the Signature FBO at Love Field to a newly-renovated building that will triple its kitchen space.

Air Culinaire’s London-area facilities will see improvement as well. At Luton Airport, the company will move to a new location that will add 6,000 sq ft, bringing it to 8,100 sq ft of space.

At London Biggin Hill, it will trade in one of the smallest kitchens in its network—located in a WWII-vintage former Royal Air Force flight crew kitchen—for the kitchen at the soon-to-open The Landing Hotel on the field. In addition to providing its normal flight catering, Air Culinaire will also run the restaurant’s kitchen serving hotel guests.

In addition to improving the infrastructure, Schweitzer noted the company is also investing heavily in technology and is working to replace its current order management system with a new platform that will simplify and streamline processes for both customers and employees.

Early during the pandemic, while passenger aviation traffic plummeted due to various restrictions, the company looked to develop a more robust client base. “When Covid hit, we were looking at who was flying, and it was cargo,” explained Schweitzer, adding that segment was stimulated by the transport of personal protection equipment and vaccines, as well as e-commerce orders from homebound customers.

At the same time, the larger in-flight caterers began to pare down their staff as their primary commercial airline customers slashed their schedules. The intertwined events caused cargo carriers to approach Air Culinaire to take on more catering for their flight crews.

Each day the Teterboro location alone now prepares up to 75 meals for cargo flights in a separate part of the facility, in addition to its normal private flight orders. “We diversified our sales channel and then what we did is we stabilized labor in our kitchens during a chaotic period,” said Schweitzer. “It was a functional survival business that ended up turning out to be a good business for us. There’s a nice margin there and we have some very happy customers.”

https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/business-aviation/2022-10-12/air-culinaire-sees-growing-appetite-flight-catering

Copyright ©2022 AIN Media Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Content Policy