Ambassador’s Sky Chef’s Mumbai unit occupies roughly 250,000 square feet just half a kilometer from Sahar International Airport
Hacor maintains a close relationship with Haji Rafek, Certification and Training Manager, Halal Audit and Compliance at Malaysian Airlines
Happy returns
A business unit of Narangs International Hotels, Ambassador’s Sky Chef is a pioneer of airline catering in India
airline catering in India. It has established two successful units within minutes of both busy airports in both Mumbai and New Dehli. The Mumbai unit occupies roughly 12,000 square meter floor area just half a kilometer from Sahar International Airport. With more than 800 staff and 24 hi-loaders the Mumbai facility caters 14 domestic and international airlines plus several charter airlines. The New Delhi unit is smaller with 7,800 square meter floor area and also employs hundreds of people servicing an impressive list of 20-plus domestic and international carriers, in addition to chartered jets, with no less than 23 catering trucks. According to Andrist, the development of the Indian inflight catering sector has been somewhat different from that in other regions. “Initially with the beginning of international flights to and from India, no inflight catering facilities were available. Therefore the obvious choice for airlines was to approach well-known first class hotels such as the Ambassador, Taj or Oberoi. They had large kitchens, international chefs and the ingredients required for the needs of the customers.” He said. “Those companies have since expanded their inflight catering divisions as a vertical business diversification with synergies in purchasing, utilisation of workforce (especially chefs), and opportunities for employees.” In recent years the Indian government has been making concerted efforts to improve airport infrastructure in reaction to an aviation industry, which like in other parts of Asia, appears to be entering a period of significant expansion. On May 24, 2008 the doors of Bangalaru International Airport, India’s first public-private partnership airport, opened officially to passengers. Rajiv Gandhi International Airport near the city of Hyderabad, the second public-private partnership venture in the Indian airports began commercial flights during the same time. “The airport at New Delhi is getting a new state of the art terminal and so is Mumbai,” says Andrist. “A new airport is also being planned in Mumbai, which should be operational in a few years. As pioneers in the Indian flight catering market, we at Ambassador’s look forward to being present at the upcoming airport in Navi Mumbai as well.”
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Part of the Hanjin Group, one of the largest companies in Korea, a single unit ‘boutique’ style unit at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) called Hacor Inc. Hacor works with a large proportion of Asian carriers outbound from LAX. “We are basically an Asian company with a mix of staff hailing from Asia, Europe, North America and Latin America,” explains Tomu Odawara, Director of Marketing at Hacor, Inc. “being so diverse in our cultural and culinary knowledge hopefully creates better understanding and communication with our customers.” In 2001 Hacor moved into an all-new 100,000 square foot facility with an output capacity of approximately 15,000 meals per day. Currently the unit is preparing about 10,000 meals daily for customers including Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Asiana Airlines, Emirates,
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