Business Plan The mission of the business will be to provide quality gourmet food and utmost convenience and choice to traveling airline passengers. While giving complete control to the airline passenger by allowing them to choose their meal and determine the cost without the inconvenience and time crunch inherent in airport food establishments or scarce in-flight food offerings.

The management team will consists of several food service industry specialists and two travel professionals. Initially the market will be limited to one large airport. The establishment will lease a kitchen space close to the Chicago International Airport and begin serving pre-ordered meals to airline passengers with flights originating from this airport with the intention of growth producing opportunities to expand to other origin locations, beginning with New York International Airport and then establishing a west coast market, in Los Angeles and a central market, in Denver.

The menu offerings will include at least ten creative gourmet dishes for a customer to choose from. Encompassing a group of Italian Country/Bistro style food selections with occasional special offerings that have a foreign flare to play off the traveling focus of the business. The food will be presented in an appetizing display and attempts will be made to ensure the time of delivery be as quick as possible to ensure quality and freshness. The menu will offer both cold and hot menu choices and the demand will be met in a restaurant style kitchen with orders being prepared just as they would be for a customer who was on sight in a dining room.

Airlines have been looking for a way to cut costs while still providing quality services for several years but the nine eleven economy downturn has left many with limited options for change and even more limited budgets to make changes. Imagine as a traveling business professional or a relaxed pleasure traveler, being able to satisfy a discriminating pallet while sitting comfortably in an airline seat, knowing that there will be no more frantic steps until the next connecting flight.

Airlines have been privatizing some services for years in an attempt to reclaim the major part of the ticket price for future growth and operations, yet the airlines have continued to pay for the privatized services of catering companies. If a flight crew could offer a quality product that has been preordered and paid for by the guess, even as early as when they made their ticket purchase the only cost would be associated with the already captive time it would take for the crew to deliver a few prepared and specialized trays of great food. Time demand for food service would be greatly reduced and flight crews would have the opportunity to meet all the passengers needs. The post- nine eleven traveling economy would quickly absorb the change and increased airline profit potential would be met by privatizing an already time demanding and substandard service that could be better performed by an outside agency.

The business will be primarily ecentered as all sales will take place on a central web site that will be heavily advertised in print adds throughout the airport terminal and will be linked from every major travel website that sells tickets to airlines being provided the service. The initial offering may be a single airline partner, possibly one who does not already serve full meals in-flight. Once the establishment of a market occurs it will then become easier to partner with other airlines wishing to offer the service to customers.

Company overview:

The company domain name will be www.airgourmet.com, which is currently an available domain name waiting for a business opportunity. The legal from of the business will be a general partnership consisting of five partners. Each partner will invest personal funds of one hundred thousand dollars and will contribute their particular business expertise.

The company history is based on an idea that will be furthered through the knowledge and experience of the partners and is currently in start-up phase. The present partners offer operating histories of existing organizations that include a gourmet catering company, an successful established brick and mortar restaurant, a travel website, and two successful non-related business ventures. Company knowledge will be an asset to the framework of a new development business.

The major goal of the company currently is the establishment of a location and the further development of partnering organizations willing to utilize the services of the organization. There are communications planned with Jet-blue Airlines, as the existing company does not currently...

When a business cooperation plan is established between this airline other airline will then be offered a chance to utilize the services and a pitch will be made to offer services to an airline that wishes to either dissolve the food offerings that exist and/or add to them through our services.
Mission Statement:

To provide quality gourmet food and utmost convenience and choice to traveling airline passengers, while giving complete control to the airline passenger by allowing them to choose their meal and determine the cost without the inconvenience and time crunch inherent in airport food establishments or scarce in-flight food offerings.

The company vision is to establish a product that will fully replace the standard food offering system to all the major airlines. The expansion into other markets will be slated for quarterly growth and development. Future success requires rapid expansion, as the industry will soon pick up the trend if it proves successful. Through the broadening of the locations of service quarterly AirGourmet will be able to offer services to every major airline and airport/region within 5 years. Through a possible public offering at one year, the company may promise individual investors growth potential of investment that will be met in the short-term and an annual growth rate of at least one hundred percent. The services provided will assist both passenger and company to meet the goal of the provision of quality and choice through a streamlined specialized and privatized organization.

Products and Services:

Airlines have been looking for a way to cut costs and provide a more appetizing and appealing food product and have up to this point just simply excluded the meal portion of their flight based on time of flight and economy. If an airline were offered tarmac service catering that was simply chosen and purchased by the consumer elsewhere, their ability to focus on a simple delivery of 10-15 trays of high quality food would reduce their time and expense considerably and increase customer satisfaction.

Passengers who wished not to utilize the service would not be bothered with having to deal with food while in-flight and flight crews could focus more time on all the passengers because their time demand for food service would be greatly reduced. Passengers who choose to benefit from the service will be offered a selection of their own choosing in the convenience of their seat often times reducing the time they need to spend in the airport and increasing the time they have in comfort, knowing there will be no more running until landing. The post- nine eleven traveling economy would absorb the change and increase airline profit potential by privatizing an already time demanding and substandard service that could be better performed by an outside agency.

Prior to this time airlines have catered food to passengers through a similar system with some very important differences. In the past the airline absorbed the cost of the service in the price of the ticket and served food to every passenger, notoriously substandard food according to many consumers. The danger of this has proven to be that the anonymity of the service provided and the quantity of the individual meals provided by the service reduced the quality to the passenger and increases the stress and demands on flight crews. The established catering system gave the same food to each individual with the only choices being those for special dietary needs, be they by choice or for health reasons. The customer was unhappy and the flight crew was unhappy.

The product and service are unique in that the customer has a choice that will ensure quality and reduce stress. The existing systems offer litter or no choice and substandard food that is often prepared hours before the time it is needed and resembles mass-produced hospital style food. Though many companies have made attempts to increase the desirability of their product the reality may be that only the names of the product have changed and the product itself is still a substandard, dry, four ounce chicken breast with an accompaniment of sticky mashed potatoes and a spongy frozen vegetable medley. Consumer tastes have grown beyond this offering and no longer wish to be offered something that they eat out of pure necessity and/or simply because it is placed within their two foot by three foot personal cubicle.

On the other hand, AirGourmet would provide meals served with both an appetizing name, not unlike those they see in gourmet restaurants and a quality product,…