What is in-flight catering management?
In-flight catering management — also known in the industry as In-Flight Hospitality Management or Onboard Services Management — is the planning, production, control and on-time delivery of everything an airline offers its valued guests during a flight. It covers the entire process, from the moment products enter the flight kitchen's receiving area to the moment the last trolley is secured in the galley.
This process has two partners: the airline, which requests the service, and the in-flight kitchen, which delivers it. The airline sets the standards; the in-flight kitchen meets them, flight after flight.
CatCal manages this entire process for both sides — planned, accurate and efficient. By analyzing the results of every action, it gives both partners the ability to measure the quality and efficiency of the service delivered. Digitizing these processes brings significant benefits to both sides.
✈ Benefits for Airlines
- SLA management: your standards and targets are defined in the system and measured flight by flight. You see clearly how well your service provider meets them.
- Live flight readiness visibility: know a flight's catering status before the aircraft door — not after the delay.
- KPIs from live data: easily track the measures you set for your service provider — OTD, catering-caused delays, loading discrepancies and food safety.
- Full audit trail: every action is logged; historical service records remain traceable months later.
- System-agnostic integration: whatever system your airline runs on, CatCal adapts the kitchen to it. Its advanced technology stays in continuous communication with the airline's own applications, enabling the fastest, most efficient adaptation — without reinventing the wheel.
- Financial tracking: simplified financial tracking and management, based on the scope of the service agreement between the airline and the catering kitchen.
🍽 Benefits for In-Flight Kitchens
Full control, from the building to the galley:
- Calculation: CatCal's origin. Processing the customer's raw data into the plans the operation needs: purchasing planning, production planning, waste management, financial calculations and analysis.
- Full management of airline requirements: processing and managing every type of information the airline authorizes — fleet, galley positions, live orders, service instructions, menu codes, specs and rotation changes.
- Operations management: the kitchen's internal and external operations — live tracking of dispatch, drivers, catering delivery coordinators and high-loaders — with solutions tailored to each kitchen's needs and structure. The limit is set by the kitchen's own vision and budget.
- Live building monitoring & Smart Facility Control: from the trolley count in the inbound cooler to dishroom tank levels, cabinet door status and temperatures — the entire facility monitored and managed online, in real time.
- Flight readiness tracking and in-building voice announcements
- Galley Designer, Cart Maps and Smart Spec Sheets
- FIFO management
- Smart planning tools and work-plan management for each department
- Digital SLA Manager and department KPIs
- Historical data on demand and internal audits
Optional modules, developed on request:
- WMS — smart warehouse management, including dark warehouses
- Operations management for dark production facilities
- BAM — BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) integrated asset management
- HR, workforce management, FSQA, quality and legal compliance system integration
Tailored, not packaged.
Every CatCal deployment is shaped around your needs, the areas where you want professional solutions, and what you want to develop next. How far it goes depends on your vision, your openness to technology and your investment.
Proven in live operations.
CatCal was born from real enterprise needs inside a live airline hub operation. It was designed and developed by people who have run these operations themselves across many countries over many years, using modern enterprise software engineering practices — and it continues to evolve every day.
It was tested in a real, live environment under heavy operational load, shaped inside a 750-person operation serving more than 400 flights a day. Its success is proven: in the kitchen where it was developed, it consistently met the KPI targets set by the airline.
Daily flights · person operation · hub performance growth
Frequently Asked Questions
What is in-flight catering management software?
It is software that manages the entire internal and external operation in one platform — from planning and production to quality control and aircraft delivery.
How does CatCal help airlines manage their catering partners?
The airline's requirements and targets are defined in the system, and the caterer's performance against them is visible live.
Does CatCal replace an airline's existing catering system?
No. CatCal works alongside the airline's existing technology infrastructure and adapts the kitchen to those systems.
Can CatCal be customized for a specific flight kitchen?
Yes. Every deployment is adapted to that kitchen's workflow, customers and standards. The limit is set by time, vision and budget.
Is CatCal available for purchase?
CatCal is still in active development inside a live operation, with the goal of becoming the reference platform for airline catering. Contact us to share your needs.
Is CatCal secure?
As in aviation, security is a core design principle in CatCal. Every necessary measure is taken to protect highly sensitive airline information, including email-verified accounts with OTP-based multi-factor authentication (MFA), role-based access control (RBAC), CSRF token protection, end-to-end TLS encryption, encryption of sensitive data at rest using industry-standard algorithms, and a full audit trail recording who did what, and when. If required, the system can also run in the customer's own environment.
How is quality managed in CatCal?
CatCal is developed under a Quality Management System (QMS) framework based on enterprise software standards. Every change passes a strict testing stage before going live, calculations and results are continuously validated and optimized, and the entire process is supported by written documentation and recovery procedures.
Tell us how your operation runs — CatCal adapts to it. Whether you are an airline or an in-flight kitchen, we would love to hear about your needs.
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