At Oryx Jet, my role as the ground operations manager involves lots of communication with maintenance, flight operations and commercial. My ultimate aim is to ensure all of our aircraft operations are being planned efficiently to ensure on-time departures and the provision of a quality customer experience during the flight and finally a seamless arrival with no delays for the passengers.

The role of GOM is responsible for a co-ordinated operational control service to achieve a safe and efficient aircraft operation. I will manage the crewing manager, operations controllers and assistants while they carry out flight planning and crew rostering duties.

I will personally do all of the quality control checks and operations staff training. An additional area that has grown in significance is the security officer role that I cover, to fulfil this task I have attained an Aviation Security Manager's qualification from the Department for Transport, I will carry out risk assessments on all of our operation and I am in the process of implementing a company security training plan and procedures. The internet is helping a lot with fuel releases and handling requests, it would be wonderful if one day all over flight permits could be secured this way.

Prior to my current position I have worked in operations for various airlines and business aviation operators for 22 years, I now have 10 years in management roles. It is very much a problem solving role and most satisfaction comes from good decisions.

Looking back over my career, the most difficult time was 9/11 as I was based in New York with Atlas Air and we had about 30 cargo 747s operating. We had to get 20 of them down quickly all over the US, at the same time I could see smoke from downtown which was 30 miles away.

The highlight was being based in Lusaka, Zambia, for two years as ops director at Zambian Airways. It was a pleasure to improve and expand the airline. It included an appearance on a very popular Zambian TV chat show talking about the airline, a wonderful moment for an ops person.

– Keith Moody, ground operations manager, Oryx Jet