Spare a thought at this year's show for the hard-working staff of ISO accredited Emirates Flight Catering. They're catering for the Dubai airshow – for the eighth time – while continuing to prepare 40,000 top quality meals daily for flights out of Dubai International Airport.
"People don't realise the logistics that go into catering for big events such as the airshow," says Duncan Davis, general manager of Emirates Flight Catering.
However, with more than 1,000 personnel onsite and 350 more in the kitchen, Davis is confident that his staff can cope with such a large job.
It's a cosmopolitan operation, with 45 nationalities represented, bringing a blend of delicious food and friendly service, with almost military precision.
That's just as well because Emirates has to cater to a huge variety of tastes, including special dietary requirements.
"Our catering experts are constantly challenged," says Davis. "They have to come up with new menus every day, offering five new options."
The food, including fresh bread, pasta and chocolate, is prepared at the flight kitchen, based air-side at Dubai airport. The amounts are substantial: 5,000 lunches, 1,700 baguettes and 5,000 pastries to name a few of the daily airshow requirement.
It's all quality controlled by Emirates own hygiene inspectors.
The food to be served hot is first cooked, then blast chilled in the kitchen and refrigerated in containers for transportation to the show site in vans. Once the food is delivered to the various eateries, it is stored in chillers ready for regeneration.
Catering van drivers manage to escape any traffic problems the rest of us can experience around the busy show site: for security reasons, they stick to air-side.
Source: Flight Daily News
