Director, Air Carrier Relations and Safety

Job Title- Director, Air Carrier Relations and Safety

Department- Elevate Aviation Group

Reports to- President, EAG

Location- Dallas, TX

Who we are-

Elevate Aviation Group, established in 2003, provides air transportation, travel consultancy, aircraft acquisitions and aircraft management services to some of the most recognized names in business, sports, entertainment, government, and higher education. Elevate Aviation Group’s wholly owned subsidiaries, Private Jet Services, Elevate Jet, and Elevate MRO, share a mission to provide aircraft owners and flyers unsurpassed service, safety, and counsel. Whether clients require charter flights, large group travel, aircraft management services, aircraft maintenance or aircraft acquisition services, Elevate Aviation Group delivers highly personalized solutions to meet each client’s unique needs 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year to any destination.

Summary of position-

The Director, Carrier Relations is directly responsible for managing and expanding all of the company’s third-party air carrier relationships on a global basis.  In this role, The Director, Carrier Relations will develop, grow and manage relationships with key recurring partners and ad hoc provider of lift for Transport Category and Executive Aircraft, in both passenger and cargo configurations while maintaining the highest focus on safety standards to include the vetting of operators to meet the EAG safety requirements.  

Essential Duties & Responsibilities-

Carrier Relations

• Negotiate preferred carrier agreements including block charter agreements.
• Develop and maintain new carrier solutions as the company grows its needs.
• Assess the market, analyze trends and make recommendations on preferred carriers based on pricing, models and methods.
• Manage escalations and resolve concerns when carriers fail to perform
• Maintain and add to the company’s proprietary database of carriers.
• Maintain the fleet database to include aircraft features, layouts, photos, and safety status. 
• Work directly with Operations to properly educate the sourcing function to locate and provide the most effective lift for operations. 

Safety

• Maintain and update the Emergency Response Plan and Safety Management Program, including safety performance monitoring, driving continuous improvement, updating policies, and educating/ training employees. 
• Conduct research, analysis, and prepare reports in support of safety investigations and other ad hoc analyses as assigned by the company. 
• Design, develop and distribute safety information in a visually compelling manner to employees. 
• Identify and manage appropriate data sources, analyze data, enter findings into our proprietary system. 
• Make recommendations to leadership in response to current safety concerns and in support of policy and process development. 
• Responsible for escalating any operation considered unsafe so that a decision can be made around how to move forward. 
• Works with third party Safety Auditing companies (Wyvern, ARGUS, Isbao).
• Responsible for leading and growing the safety committee including scheduling consistent meetings and maintaining meeting notes.
• Create seating maps for all part 135 & 121 aircraft and ensure photos are updated for proposals. 
• Capture operator details such as aircraft photos, layout, and cabin/exterior photos and upload them internally for accurate descriptions for client proposals.
• Performs additional tasks as assigned by the company.

Requirements

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities-

• Proven ability to negotiate and partner with air carriers
• Knowledge of aircraft operations 
• Excellent written and verbal communication 
• Demonstrated ability to take initiative / self-driven 
• Attention to detail, highly organized 
• High degree of confidentiality and discretion 
• Must be willing to travel in U.S. and International

Education & Experience-

• Bachelor's degree preferred.
• Minimum 7 years of experience in the 135 charter aviation industry.
• 5+ years of experience in a safety-related aviation position preferred.

Schedule & Travel-

• Schedule depends on needs of the business; must be able to work nights and weekends when required
• Travel up to 20%.

Miscellaneous-

• FLSA Status- full time exempt
• Lifting requirements- Up to 25lbs