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Servair develops Middle East plans Continuing its expansion plan in the region that includes all of Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, Servair announced that it has entered into a partnership with the catering division of Abdul Jadeyal Beverages. The news, confirmed during ITCA Dubai, will see Servair involved in technical, commercial assistance, and developing new airline clients for the Jeddah International Airport flight kitchen. “This is a new relationship for us, and it builds on our growing expertise in the halal process, since opening our full halal kitchen in December 2006,” said Servair’s Senior Vice President of International Sales, Hervé Paris. Servair operates several catering units in Africa, including the major airports of Senegal, Mali, Gabon, Togo, Mauritania and Burkina Faso. These are promising developments that date back to the involvement of Air France in the African continent, and with growing numbers of airline customers, the company said they make up profitable business units for catering and aircraft cleaning combined. “The objective for this, our first appearance at ITCA Dubai, is to fill the market in the Middle East,” commented Hervé Paris. “We picked up five customers last year, catering [out of Paris] for Qatar Airways, Saudia, Gulf Air and Kuwait Airways, plus Malaysia in the halal segment, so we are here to show our interest and commitment to the region.” He said that with Servair already supplying the kitchen in Jeddah, it was a natural move to develop the relationship, given all the activity past, present and future changes in the Saudi flight services business. “We see the region as growing very fast in catering,” said Servair Executive Vice President, Pierre Daul. “We intend to go step by step in the Middle East, and study very carefully the requirements for each client. Our plan is to grow our business in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, to study the development side and to put the Servair name in the region through partnerships.” Servair added that even with the single caterer set-up entrenched in many Middle East hubs, there are opportunities for different areas of support, such as engineering of kitchens, food processing, as well as investors. —Trevor Lloyd-Jones |
