Confidential mandate
Aviation Turnaround Diagnostic Director — Consulting
Planned Hiring / New
An airline needs a two-week independent turnaround diagnostic isolating controllable delay across aircraft, crew, ground handling, baggage and maintenance before an urgent recovery-programme decision at its hub.
The mandate
The narrow problem is unexplained variability between scheduled and achieved turnarounds, with delay codes reflecting ownership debates rather than observed process. Mobilisation begins 14 September 2026 and closes after council acceptance on 25 September 2026; the airline needs a decision-ready answer, not a recovery implementation.
The two-week deliverable is a flight-level baseline, observed critical path, corrected delay taxonomy, causal analysis, station and fleet comparisons, quantified intervention portfolio and ninety-day test plan.
Milestone one is due 18 September 2026 with reconciled data and 120 observed turns; milestone two on 25 September 2026 with causal findings, prioritised actions and council-approved test design.
The On-Time Performance Council accepts when operations control reconciles flight outcomes by day three, 120 observations cover the agreed station and fleet strata with at least ninety-five-percent timestamp completeness, each priority cause has process evidence and proposed tests include safety, customer and crew guardrails.
The airline provides movement, delay, crew, maintenance, baggage and ground-handler data plus airside access before day one. Safety and station leaders approve observation protocols and join daily fact reviews throughout the ten-working-day sprint.
Why this is external work
Every operational party has incentives attached to delay attribution. Independent observers can establish the actual critical path without owning a station score. The intensive two-week diagnostic is deliberately separate from the later recovery programme.
What you will own
- Reconcile flight, delay and operational-event data by day three for milestone one.
- Observe 120 turns using one timestamp and process protocol.
- Correct delay classification where observed evidence differs.
- Identify causal patterns by station, fleet, wave and disruption state.
- Quantify intervention value and operational dependencies.
- Design ninety-day tests with safety and service guardrails.
- Defend the milestone-two diagnostic before the council.
Candidate qualifications
- 22–28 years in airline operations, airports, maintenance or operational improvement.
- Direct turnaround or on-time-performance leadership at a major hub.
- Experience combining flight data with structured airside observation.
- Evidence of correcting politically disputed delay attribution.
- Strong safety, crew, ground and maintenance workflow knowledge.
- Ability to mobilise immediately and deliver an independent diagnostic within two weeks.
Non-negotiables
- Airside access and safety training completed before the first working day.
- No ground-handler or technology-provider commercial interest.
- Director remains onsite for all ten working days and leads the observation protocol and council readout.
- No intervention recommended without observed or data-supported cause.
- 49 words maximum. Which airline turnaround problem did you diagnose, and what observed event contradicted the coded delay?
- 49 words maximum. How would you stratify 120 observations across station, fleet and operating conditions within two weeks?
- 49 words maximum. Which flight and operational feeds must reconcile by day three to protect the final decision date?
This mandate is confidential. The client is named only under a mutual NDA, and your own record is never listed, sold or shown to a company under your name until you release it for this specific mandate.