Addis Catering delivering quality to Africa

Former Bahrain Airport Services manager of catering support services Hamish Ledingham was at ITCA Dubai with colleagues to launch a company with big ambitions for flight catering in the African continent.

Since joining Addis International Catering in March, Ledingham said the new company is well along with a new state of the art catering building at Addis Ababa International Airport, penciled to open in June 2008, with capacity of 15,000 meals per day.

“The facility is built more on European lines with complete pre-fabricated walls and sophisticated systems for vacuum waste and food handling, higher than what is demanded in most of the rest of the world,” said Ledingham.

“A new airport building was launched three years ago, with an impressive image and plan to attract new airlines,” he said. Currently Addis Catering serves nine carriers plus the national Ethiopian Airlines. In future the growth and the rate of change at the airport is expected to go higher, since Addis already serves as a major hub connecting all the differing routings of Africa, which currently amount to 40 flights to 40 different destinations.

“Most of the international airlines are back catering at the moment, and they are our clear target,” said Ledingham. “This is a tremendous opportunity here for delivering a safe, well prepared quality standard that is currently not available in Africa.”

He adds that there is a lot of development in the city and on the tourism front. Ethiopia is a large country of 90 million people with a rich but dormant archaeological and historical heritage that will over time become accessible to more visitors as connections, both inside the country and inside the airport improve.

—Trevor Lloyd-Jones