Director of Air Operations Toronto, ON, Canada

Travel Edge Group; Toronto; On-site; CAD 80,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player seeks a Director of Air Operations to lead a dynamic air ticketing support team. This role involves overseeing air operations for a multi-million dollar enterprise, driving market share, and optimizing performance through data-driven decision-making. You will collaborate with R&D to refine automation in the reservation platform, ensuring excellence in service delivery. If you have a passion for travel and a knack for leadership, this is your opportunity to make a significant impact in a rapidly growing environment.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in a retail travel company environment.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with decision-making ability.
• Excellent communication and leadership skills.

Responsibilities

• Build and manage an air support and ticketing center of excellence.
• Analyze KPIs and prepare executive reports for resource planning.
• Manage a team of air support professionals and ensure customer satisfaction.

Skills

Analytical Skills

Problem-Solving

Leadership

Communication Skills

Project Management

Decision-Making

Customer Service

Technical Aptitude

Education

Experience in Retail Travel

Experience with GDS Systems

Tools

Sabre

Amadeus

Apollo

Worldspan

Trip Case

Virtually There

Cornerstone

Job description

Travel Edge is the largest luxury-focused travel agency in North America with over 750 advisors, planners, and travel experts specializing in Leisure, Corporate & Events travel. We believe in the power of travel, our people, the technology they use, and giving back to the communities in which we operate. Our luxury advisors are at the core of everything we do, specializing in air, hotel, cruise, tours, and VIP travel. Our Corporate Travel Consultants provide tailored, full-service travel management solutions to our business clients.

The Director of Air Operations will manage air operations for Travel Edge Trip Arc. You will oversee the air ticketing support group for a $600MM top-line enterprise, with plans to grow to over $1B. Your team will support multiple companies and branch locations, serving a growing user base of over 700 travel industry professionals. An important aspect of the role involves close involvement with the evolution of our in-house developed reservation system, ADX (with $14MM invested to date).

The Director of Air Operations will architect, build, and manage the ongoing operations of the centralized air ticketing support team at Travel Edge. You will be a key resource on both tactical and strategic air-related initiatives. Success in this role requires strong problem-solving skills, domain knowledge of the travel industry and technology, and experience in building scalable teams and processes using service management methodologies.

Essential Job Functions

1. Build and manage an air support and ticketing center of excellence servicing multiple agencies, affiliates, and independent contractors across diverse processes in multiple ARC and GDS environments. Drive market share and volume according to business rules to meet targets with suppliers. Ensure fee-for-service structures are documented and fees are correctly applied in PNR accounting lines.
2. Measure business performance against plans and identify corrective actions. Monitor achievement of KPIs that drive key business results.
3. Analyze KPIs such as ticket issuance time, error rate, SLA performance, and team productivity. Prepare executive reports and make data-driven decisions for resource planning and budgeting.
4. Manage a team of air support professionals, including hiring, team building, goal setting, performance management, and mentoring. Motivate and empower staff and contractors to perform optimally.
5. Market-share Optimization – operationalize agreements using GDS and our in-house tools (Contract Management Facility and Commission Optimization Service). Become an expert in these tools.
6. Contract Management – ensure all contracts are accurately loaded into company systems to meet market share and performance targets.
7. Provide backup support for operational processes like missed commission reports, queue monitoring, debit memo research, KPI reports, and use of favors and waivers.
8. Air support – provide frontline support for questions on upgrades, contract interpretation, and soft-dollar use. Support team members on complex transactions such as exchanges and refunds.
9. Act as escalation point on operational issues and build relationships with airline account managers.
10. Collaborate with TripArc R&D to refine automations (e.g., auto-ticketing, auto-schedule changes) in our reservation platform ADX. Drive improvements through defect tracking KPIs.
11. Proficiency with Sabre or related GDS systems (Apollo, Amadeus, Worldspan) to ensure comprehensive knowledge of air sales processes.
12. Maintain customer satisfaction through service, knowledge, and process management. Handle incident and problem reporting, scope verification, and change control.

Qualifications

1. Extensive experience with a retail travel company environment.
2. Ability to plan and deliver projects with 3 months to 1-year timelines.
3. Capability to work autonomously on high-pressure projects while managing multiple activities.
4. Strong analytical, mathematical, and systematic problem-solving skills.
5. Decision-making ability under moderate risk and ambiguity, based on analysis, experience, and judgment.
6. Excellent communication skills, including presentation skills and the ability to communicate effectively at executive levels.
7. Strong leadership skills to mobilize teams and achieve objectives.
8. Positive, proactive personality, team-oriented, self-starter, and effective communicator across diverse teams.
9. Aptitude for learning new technologies quickly.
10. Proficiency in Sabre and at least one other GDS (Amadeus, Apollo, or Worldspan).
11. Knowledge of travel industry tools like Trip Case, Virtually There, and Cornerstone.
12. Familiarity with industry resources such as Virtuoso Composer and cruise line websites.
13. Experience in interpreting air contracts and translating legal language into process rules.

We are committed to providing employment accommodations in accordance with the Ontario Human Rights Code and the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. If you require accommodations during the hiring process, please inform us when applying.

We thank all candidates for their interest; only those selected for an interview will be contacted.