New Facility Brings Peace of Mind
The heart of the home is the kitchen and Base Auckland’s heart has just undergone a major make-over. The long-awaited work on its in-flight kitchen has resulted in state-of-the art equipment and a design layout that’s fit for purpose.
“Base Auckland is pleased to have their ‘new and improved’ in-flight kitchen up and running, which looks really good and it’s operationally efficient and compliant to modern regulation” Hospitality Business Manager Neven Letica said.
The refurbishment has been a long time coming and was initiated about three years ago after it was decided a new floor was necessary.
“The floor was completely unsafe, so I wanted a new floor, but there were legacy issues with the rest of the building as well,” Mr Letica said.
The building is attached to the Bristol Block and provides in-flight catering for No.s 5, 6 and 40 Squadrons as well as other visiting domestic and international aircraft.
The catering was always being completed to a high standard, but before the remodel, staff were ‘making do’ with the facility that wasn’t built specifically for in-flight meal preparation”. Mr Letica said.
There was a fair amount of uprooting during the work, with the in-flight kitchen moved to the Officers’ Mess and the Officers’ Mess moved to the Combined Mess.
“During the renovation period the Combined Mess staff prepared all the food for the base customers and the Officers’ Mess prepared all the food for the aircraft. We operated like that for about seven months and the contractor ESS, did a really good job providing uninterrupted delivery during this time of major disruption.” he said.
“From my point of view it’s a great story about ESS, our commercial caterers working closely with the squadrons and how well they work together. The switch-back to ‘normal ops’ was also seamless.
“It’s the NZDF’s responsibility to have a facility that is fit-for-purpose for the contractor, so that was one of the drivers behind me pushing for the project to go ahead.”
