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Accra, Ghana – Ghanaian owned airline Goldstar Air is to set up the Tamale Aviation Catering Services (Phase 6) of the Tamale City Project to meet the needs of its passengers and serve other airlines using the Tamale International Airport.
Airline catering is the business of providing food and beverage services on commercial flights. These services
are indispensable in enhancing the overall passenger experience during air travel.
Overall, airline catering services play a crucial role in ensuring that passengers have a positive and satisfying culinary experience while traveling by air. The industry continually evolves to meet changing passenger preferences, dietary trends, and regulatory requirements.
According to the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldstar Air, Eric Bannerman, the airline flight attendants will be playing a key role in passenger satisfaction, as they will be ensuring perfect service that supports the company’s brand promise.
“The best food with the most beautiful presentation can be negatively impacted if not served with the right level of attention. We will empower our cabin crew members to deliver a supreme and seamless service and equip them with all the necessary tools and training they will need to have the confidence to perform at the highest level of in-flight hospitality.
The airline has therefore made adequate provisions to serve passengers by introducing Ghanaian dishes and local movies to showcase Ghanaian culture to the rest of the world. We will also customize our catering services to align with our brand image”, a statement on the company’s social media page said.
Goldstar Air will provide special meals for passengers with dietary restrictions or specific preferences, such as vegetarian, vegan, kosher, halal, gluten-free, or diabetic meals. These meals are prepared separately to accommodate individual needs.
“Our meals will be prepared at our catering facility located on-site at our Aviation training school, which will also handle students for training purposes. The facility, to be located close to the airport, will ease the transportation of the prepared meal to the aircraft in a small window of time while it is at the gate.”
The public will soon recognize the lifted Goldstar Air catering trucks delivering catering to aircraft at the Tamale International Airport. This process will involve coordination with the airlines and adhering to strict timelines to ensure that meals are loaded onto the Airplanes before departure.
Mr. Bannerman emphasized that “the airline will introduce our premium catering software, to keep track of all our orders and welcome turnaround last-minute orders, talking about commercial or private jet catering. The airline will place all orders from the local farmers in Ghana far in advance and will have a complex supply chain to stay ahead of culinary trends and predict what people might want to eat.
The airline catering software will help monitor ingredients and previous orders to streamline menu management by keeping up with dietary trends and gathering extensive feedback to ensure we satisfy all customers. One may underestimate the benefits of the catering business, but airline catering is a huge industry, worth $6 billion in the U.S. alone. Airline catering companies need to source hundreds of snacks or meals for almost every flight daily, which can add up to a lot of food. A lot of logistics go into making this happen smoothly.”
Private jet catering, he said “works quite differently because customers pay top dollar for their services, and tend to have more varied and specific needs than commercial airline guests. Private jet catering is usually an entirely customizable menu and experience for guests. Goldstar Air will have an extensive menu of at least 3,000 items for all passengers, as we expect to receive orders for anything and everything; even the things most people might consider bizarre, whatever they may be.”
The airline’s 24-hour catering department will have stringent quality control measures to ensure the food meets safety and hygiene standards. This includes regular inspections and testing to guarantee the quality of ingredients and the final prepared meals and will also manage the disposal of waste generated during flights; and throwing away packaging and uneaten food in compliance with environmental regulations.
“We will package our meals in such a way that they remain fresh and mouth-watering during the flight. Packaging must also meet aviation safety standards and be easy for flight attendants to handle when serving passengers.
In addition to meals, our airline catering services include the provision of beverages, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic. Beverage options are chosen to complement the meals and provide for passenger preferences”, Bannerman added.
While snacks or meals in coach can sometimes leave something to be desired, first-class and business-class passengers often receive larger, fancier meals and have more food choices and beverage options.
Every airline catering company has the challenge of making enticing menus with food that tastes good. Airplane has a reputation for being bland, and there is a reason for that.
Goldstar Air will join forces with Afrik Allianz members to give passengers a taste of regional cuisine or cultural preferences, and sometimes celebrity chefs, to devise menus. Dishes are decided based on trends and routes, and recipes and processes are tweaked for optimal taste at 35,000 feet.
In-flight catering enhances passenger experience, satisfaction, and comfort during air travel. By offering customized dining options, premium culinary experiences, and attentive service, Goldstar Air will create memorable journeys that resonate with travelers and reinforce its brand image and reputation and work to deliver an unparalleled experience, focused on powering the future catering.
“We will have a team of culinary professionals who will be in control of selecting what food and beverages they would like to offer on their flights. While the menus tend to be rather small, they will have a few menu options that they cycle through depending on what location the flight leaves and what time of year it is.
The culinary team will always rely on feedback from flight attendants and monitor food trends to ensure menus are popular with customers and conform to their dietary needs.
The airline’s 24-hour catering service will collaborate with local farmers and produce Plantain chips, Koose, Roasted plantain, Tapioca, Ekuegbemi, Tiger nut pudding, Oblayoo, Massa, Kuli-kuli, Akpiti, Adonlee, Kelewele, Acheke, Waakye, Abolo, Yakayaka, Aboboi and Tatale.
Ghanaian food and beverage companies stand to gain as Goldstar Air introduces local delicacies on board, showcasing them globally. Beverage options are chosen to complement the meals and cater to passenger preferences.
Additionally, from 5-star hotels to bed and breakfast establishment options on their menus soon, we can have the same as hotels outside Ghana. The airline’s initiative is to promote Ghanaian businesses on board its aircraft, grow its team, and create a global footprint, which is part of over one hundred thousand direct jobs the airline seeks to create for Ghanaians.
To make Tamale International Airport useful for the region, the youth must be trained to get jobs to benefit Northerners, because it is not only about opening the airport for international passengers and aircraft but also for the local people and region to benefit from the 24/7 economy-axillary jobs around the airport.
The main reason for opening the international concourse at the airport is for Northerners to get jobs, and Goldstar Air is the obvious choice to make it happen. Goldstar Air, as an economic tool, knows what and how to let people in the region earn more money in aviation, tourism, and other sectors of the economy by enhancing the country’s economic performance.
Goldstar Air will initially operate flights from Kumasi Prempeh 1 International Airport to Rome, Madrid, Hamburg, London, Dusseldorf, and Milan.
Also, flights from Accra Kotoka International Airport shall include destinations such as Washington, Dubai, Lagos, Toronto, Monrovia, Conakry, Abidjan, Guangzhou, Dakar, Banjul, Rhode Island, London, and Freetown.
Tamale International Airport will serve as a pivotal hub for its airline’s cargo and plans are underway to operate international passenger flights to and from the Sahel region and Hajj flights to and from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The Tamale Aviation Catering Services has a strategic presence to get the efficient utilization of the 80 percent food basket share value the Northern Region provides for Ghana, thereby providing authentic flight dishes for healthy living and will also help reduce the region’s unemployment rate by 5 percent, which will be an economic relief for the country.
Source: Goldstar Air
