Airline catering produces around 30,000 meals per day near airports to feed passengers on flights. Food is prepared using a cook-chill process where ingredients are received, stored, prepared, cooked, rapidly chilled, stored again, reheated, and served without being touched. The workflow involves goods receipt, deboxing, storage, preparation, cooking, portioning, chilling, assembly onto trays, storage in chillers, and dispatch to flights along with production planning based on flight schedules. Food safety and hygiene are top priorities given the long storage time before consumption.

1. Airline Catering
Presented by:
Md. Laraib Ahsan

2. Content
• Introduction
• Stages of Cook-Chill Process
• Work Flow Chart of an Airline Catering Establishment
• Goods Received
• De-boxing Area
• Storage
• Food Preparation Area
• Assembly of Food
• Operation of Flight catering

3. Introduction:
• Airline catering is the most sophisticated and extensive food
production catering establishment in the hospitality sector.
• The flight catering operate near to the airports and can cater to as
many as 30, 000 meals a day.
• Its focus is on health, hygiene, and safety as the food prepared at one
time would be consumed by the passengers after many days and so it
is important to ensure that the food is not contaminated right through
the production until service.
• It is one of the largest volume production units and the operations in
the kitchen are very different from any other food establishment. The
techniques used to preserve food is known as cook-chill or cook-
freeze.

4. Stages of Cook-Chill process
• Selection of Raw Materials: It is important to select good quality raw
materials. A substandard quality material will yield a substandard
product and will impact the final product.
• Storage of Raw materials: Once prime quality product is purchased, it
becomes essential to store the product until further processing under
required temperature and humidity. ALL RAW MATERIALS MUST BE
WASHED BEFORE STORING.
• Preparation: The food preparation is an area where the basic mise en
place, such as cutting, chopping, cleaning etc. is done for the final
product
• Cooking: The food is then cooked according to the standard recepie.

5. Stages of Cook-Chill process Contd…..
• Portioning: Once the food has been cooked, it is portioned as per the
standards and quantity.
• Rapid Chilling: Blast chillers or blast freezers are used for this
purpose. These equipment chill hot food within 2-4 hours.
• Storage of Chilled food: After the food is blast chilled/frozen, it needs
to be stored immediately in refrigerated equipment with temperature
below 4 °𝐶.
• Distribution: The food is now distributed to various aircrafts where it
will be consumed.

6. Stages of Cook-Chill process Contd…..
• Reheating: The cooked and stored food is reheated to the required
temperature before being served to the passengers for consumption.
• Service: The food needs to be served with clean and sanitized cutlery.
The food should NEVER be touched with bare hands.

7. Workflow Chart of an Airline Catering
Establishment
Goods Received
Deboxing Area
Cold Storage Chilled storage
Blast
Chillers/Freezers
Food preparation
Kitchen
Assembly
Tray Set-up
Dispatch to
aeroplanes

8. Goods Received
• A large catering establishment, such as airline catering, which
produces around 30, 000 meals in a single day, has to rely on a huge
number of suppliers. The food order, depending on the number of
meals produced, is placed with the suppliers. The food science labs
check to see if the raw materials are free from any contamination.

9. De-boxing Area
• A separate area near the receiving is identified, where all the external
packaging is removed and discarded.
• The vegetables are washed in vegetable washers and the eggs are
pasteurised. The de-boxing is done to discard any cardboards staplers
pins etc., going into the production area as the external packaging can
carry many contaminants
(An automatic De-boxer)

10. Storage
• The raw materials must be stored immediately.
• Dry goods should be sent to dry storage area and food requiring
chilling or freezing should be sent to cold storage areas.
• The butchery items must be sent straight to the preparation areas.
Goods must be stored in colour coded storage boxes for easy
recognition.

11. Food Preparation Area
• The food is processed in the food preparation area and stored into
colour coded boxes with date tag.
• The prepared food is then sent to the hot or cold kitchen for cooking.
(Preparing Food)

12. Assembly of Food
• The food after being prepared is placed on the tray as per the set-up
discussed and standardized for various class of airline. It is then
packed into trolley, known as high loaders and is kept in the walk-in-
chillers to maintain the temperature.
(Portioning of food)

13. Operation of Flight Catering
• Meal ordering procedure
– An order sheet is received from the airline company 24hrs prior
with specification for special meal and allergic food.
– The conformation of final meal order is sent 4 hrs prior to the
flight.
• Communication to production team
– The kitchen order ticket (KOT) is made by the operation manager
as a triplicate copy and one copy goes to kitchen, one copy to
operation and the other copy goes along with the food during
loading of food in the flight.

14. Operation of Flight Catering Contd….
• Dispatch of food
– All the trolleys are stacked in the walk-in to maintain the
temperature of food.
– While loading dry ice is filled in the trolley to maintain
temperature of food during flight.
– The trolley is checked by the security personnel.
– The high loaders are always accompanied by security guard. The
high loader is not allowed to stop unless they reach the airport.
– They are stationed at the airport and after satisfactory checking by
the security personnel of the airline company the high loaders are
handed to the airport.

15. Operation of Flight Catering Contd….
• Production Planning
– The kitchen’s production planning is done on the basis of number
of flights to be catered the next day. It is done according to the
break-up of the number of economy class, business class and first
class.
– The food is made 18 hrs prior to the flight timing.
(Final Tray set-up)