Supervisor, Departure Control Systems

Flair Airlines Ltd.; Toronto; On-site; CAD 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Unlimited travel perks

Comprehensive benefits package

Employer-matched retirement plan

Competitive salary

Job summary

Flair Airlines in Toronto is seeking a Supervisor, Departure Control Systems to lead the Departure Control Coordinators, ensuring accurate passenger processing and compliant flight close-out in a 24/7 operation.

You will oversee data integrity, coordinate with IT and Airports, and mentor DCCs while maintaining high standards of safety and service. This on-site role requires rotating shifts and strong leadership.

Qualifications

• Post-secondary education in aviation management, airline operations, security, regulatory affairs, business administration or equivalent preferred.
• Minimum three years in airline operations, airport operations, or departure control preferred.
• Strong knowledge of APIS workflows, government responses, and regulatory requirements.
• Experience with departure control systems, passenger processing, and flight close-out.

Responsibilities

• Provide direct day-of leadership for Departure Control Coordinators and manage workloads.
• Escalate DCS, APIS, and government-messaging issues and coordinate resolutions.
• Ensure data accuracy and regulatory compliance for passenger and crew movements.
• Coordinate outages and ensure business-continuity procedures are followed.
• Lead training, onboarding, and cross-training of DCCs and PRCs.
• Maintain procedures, checklists, and escalation pathways for DCS operations.
• Oversee data integrity and system health across Airline Choice interfaces.

Skills

Leadership

APIS workflows

DCS operations

Regulatory compliance

Communication

Problem solving

Multi-tasking

On-site work

Technical aptitude

Education

Post-secondary aviation/airline operations education

Tools

Airline Choice

Amelia

NavBlue NOC

Job description

Take Your Career to New Heights with Flair Airlines

We’re here to make air travel affordable for everyone, and we’re looking for talented individuals who want to help us continue changing the industry for the better. As Canada’s most reliable airline, we're all about offering real value. As we continue to expand our network, increase flight frequencies, and introduce more services, we’re looking for passionate team members to help us in our mission to make air travel accessible for everyone. We know who we are, and we’re confident in our approach.

Your Team:

Join the OCC and Planning team at Flair as a Supervisor, Departure Control Systems, where you will play a key role in overseeing daily Departure Control operations to ensure accurate, compliant, and efficient passenger processing and flight close-out activities. Reporting to the Manager, Passenger Operations and Recovery, you will provide leadership and direction to the Departure Control Coordinators (DCCs), manage workloads, monitor performance, and act as the first point of escalation for DCS, APIS, travel documentation, government messaging, and passenger-processing issues. You will work closely with the Duty Officer, Airports, IT, Security, Flight Operations, Crew, ground handlers, and other operational stakeholders to resolve issues, maintain regulatory compliance, and support smooth flight operations. This role requires strong leadership, technical knowledge, sound decision-making, and the ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced operational environment. The position requires rotating shifts, including days, evenings, nights, weekends, and statutory holidays, to support our 24/7 operations.

This is a full-time, on-site position that is based at our Toronto (YYZ) office.

A Day in the Life:

As a Supervisor, Departure Control Systems, you will:

• Provide direct day-of leadership, coaching, work assignment, and workload management for Departure Control Coordinators.
• Act as the first point of escalation for DCS, APIS, travel-document, passenger-processing, government-messaging, and flight close-out issues.
• Monitor staffing, attendance, shift coverage, qualification status, handovers, and operational readiness.
• Ensure DCCs work from the confirmed Duty Officer operating plan and understand current flight, station, system, and regulatory priorities.
• Monitor Airline Choice and associated interfaces for system health, data integrity, flight readiness, transmission failures, and unresolved exceptions.
• Ensure required passenger and crew data, government messages, responses, corrections, and manual submissions are completed within applicable timelines.
• Provide immediate technical guidance for rejected or unresolved APIS records, passenger vetting responses, document-entry issues, and complex passenger exceptions.
• Oversee DCS support to stations for check-in, document entry, boarding, passenger reconciliation, seat configuration, aircraft registration, and flight close-out.
• Coordinate functional response during DCS, APIS, reservation, interface, or connectivity outages and ensure approved business-continuity procedures are used and documented.
• Escalate material safety, security, regulatory, passenger, data-integrity, system, or departure-readiness risks to the Manager and Duty Officer without delay.
• Maintain clear shift handovers identifying active exceptions, failed messages, manual processes, open actions, owners, and deadlines.
• Conduct quality reviews, identify recurring errors or weak controls, and coordinate corrective action, coaching, or process improvement.
• Support training, recurrent qualification, onboarding, and cross-training of DCCs and qualified secondary PDC resources.
• Maintain approved procedures, checklists, templates, contact lists, escalation pathways, and operational reference material.
• Maintain active oversight of APIS submissions and government response messages for applicable passenger and crew movements.
• Confirm required pre-departure, departure, and post-departure messages are transmitted accurately and within required timelines.
• Monitor applicable Canadian passenger-data and security-vetting requirements, including Interactive API and Passenger Protect Program processes.
• Monitor applicable U.S. Secure Flight, CBP APIS, and other passenger or crew vetting requirements for transborder operations.
• Maintain working awareness of passenger and crew data requirements for Mexico, the Caribbean, and other international destinations served by Flair.
• Ensure incomplete, rejected, duplicate, mismatched, or unresolved passenger and crew records are identified and actioned before departure.
• Oversee resolution calls and complex government-response cases and ensure final actions are accurately documented.
• Ensure manual APIS procedures are current, controlled, available, and used correctly when automated transmission is unavailable or unsupported.
• Verify charter, recovery, subservice, ferry, and other non-standard operations receive the correct passenger, crew, manifest, and regulatory messaging support.
• Escalate any situation that could create denied boarding, denied entry, regulatory non-compliance, departure delay, government penalty, or data-integrity exposure.
• Protect sensitive passenger, crew, passport, security, and government-response information in accordance with approved privacy and security controls.
• Ensure flights are correctly created, configured, and prepared in Airline Choice and associated departure-control environments.
• Verify passenger lists, crew information, aircraft registrations, seating configurations, and required operational data are accurate and complete.
• Identify and coordinate correction of data discrepancies between Airline Choice, Amelia, NavBlue NOC, and other connected platforms.
• Oversee station support for passenger processing, secondary travel documents, check-in, boarding, seat assignment, passenger reconciliation, and flight close-out.
• Ensure quality-control messages, system warnings, failed interfaces, and flight-close exceptions are actively monitored and resolved.
• Coordinate with IT and system vendors during failures, interface issues, configuration problems, or data mismatches that affect flight readiness.
• Ensure approved manual workarounds are followed, communicated, controlled, and withdrawn once normal service is restored.
• Maintain oversight of departure-control support for charter, recovery, subservice, and other non-standard operations.
• Ensure DCS and APIS records are complete, accurate, timely, retrievable, and defensible.
• Conduct regular quality reviews of transmissions, government responses, passenger and crew records, resolution calls, manual actions, flight close-out, and operational notes.
• Identify repeat errors, station trends, transmission failures, documentation gaps, and weak controls; assign or recommend corrective action.
• Maintain trackers for open system issues, regulatory exceptions, failed messages, corrective actions, and recurring operational concerns.
• Support evidence collection for audits, investigations, government inquiries, administrative monetary penalties, fines, complaints, and legal follow-up.
• Ensure significant decisions, verbal direction, manual submissions, exceptions, and government responses are recorded in approved systems of record.
• Maintain primary DCS/APIS qualifications for Departure Control Coordinators and support recurrent competency requirements.
• Support the Manager in maintaining qualified secondary DCS capability within the Passenger Recovery Coordinator team.
• Provide functional direction to cross-trained PRCs when they are temporarily deployed to DCS activity.
• Ensure employees do not perform DCS, APIS, or government-messaging activity beyond their qualification or delegated authority.
• Identify skill gaps and coordinate development, coaching, and recurrent training with the Manager.
• Support DCC cross-training in routine passenger recovery tasks so resources can be shifted when operational demand requires.
• Provide the Duty Officer and Manager with clear information on DCS readiness, APIS status, unresolved regulatory responses, station constraints, and system impacts.
• Identify material risks early enough to influence operational decisions and avoid preventable departure delays or regulatory exposure.
• Maintain clear and professional communication with Airports, handlers, IT, government agencies, Flight Operations, Crew, Security, Charter Operations, and other stakeholders.
• Lead structured shift briefings and handovers and ensure incoming staff understand open cases, risks, owners, and deadlines.
• Ensure DCC direction to stations is accurate, consistent, documented, and aligned with approved procedures.
• Escalate conflicting, incomplete, or delayed information without unnecessary decision latency.
• Lead, coach, and support direct reports and set clear standards for technical accuracy, accountability, communication, and conduct.
• Provide timely recognition, coaching, and corrective feedback and support formal performance reviews and development plans.
• Support recruitment, onboarding, scheduling, attendance management, and qualification tracking.
• Promote a single-team culture within PDC while maintaining clear ownership of DCS and APIS controls.
• Build technical depth and succession capability within the Departure Control team.
• Perform other duties and assignments as required.

What You Bring to the Role:

The preferred candidate should exemplify Flair's core values of respect, honesty, accountability, and efficiency while demonstrating success in previous roles. Additionally, we are seeking individuals who possess:

• Education:
  • Post-secondary education in aviation management, airline operations, security, regulatory affairs, business administration, or a related field is preferred.
  • An equivalent combination of education, airline training, and relevant operational experience may be considered.
• Experience:
  • Minimum three years of experience in airline operations, airport operations, departure control, passenger processing, regulatory compliance, or a related environment is preferred.
  • Previous supervisory, team-lead, training, or functional leadership experience is strongly preferred.
  • Demonstrated hands-on experience with APIS, passenger or crew vetting, government messaging, and exception resolution is strongly preferred.
  • Strong working knowledge of departure control systems and international/transborder passenger-processing requirements is strongly preferred.
  • Experience with U.S. Secure Flight, CBP APIS, Canadian passenger-data/security-vetting processes, or manual APIS submissions is a strong asset.
  • Familiarity with Airline Choice, Amelia, NavBlue NOC, or comparable airline platforms is an asset.
  • Experience supporting charter operations, passenger and crew manifests, GENDECs, flight close-out, and non-standard operations is an asset.
  • Experience working within a 24-hour airline operations or control-centre environment is preferred.
• Skills and Abilities:
  • Advanced practical understanding of APIS workflows, government responses, exception handling, and the operational impact of incomplete or rejected submissions.
  • Strong DCS knowledge, including flight set-up, passenger processing, document entry, reconciliation, and flight close-out.
  • Strong leadership, coaching, prioritization, and workload-management skills.
  • Calm, disciplined decision-making and technical troubleshooting under pressure.
  • Ability to manage multiple flights, systems, messages, and regulatory exceptions simultaneously without losing control of detail.
  • Ability to work on-site within the Operations Control Centre.
  • Ability to support significant operational or regulatory events outside scheduled hours when required.
  • Ability to work rotating shifts, including days, evenings, nights, weekends, and statutory holidays.
  • Strong analytical, investigative, and root-cause problem-solving capability.
  • Excellent written and verbal communication and disciplined shift-handover practices.
  • Strong documentation, quality-assurance, evidence, and follow-up discipline.
  • Ability to interpret procedures and regulatory requirements and translate them into practical day-of actions.
  • Strong technical aptitude and comfort working with airline systems, interfaces, trackers, and manual contingency processes.
  • High discretion when handling sensitive passenger, crew, passport, and government information.
• Requirements:
  • Clear criminal record check and satisfactory references.
  • Must be legally eligible to work in Canada without restriction.
  • Must be able to obtain and maintain a valid Restricted Area Identity Card (RAIC), where required.

Why You’ll Love Working Here:

At Flair, we prioritize our teams by cultivating a supportive, collaborative work environment filled with opportunities for growth. Investing in our people is at the heart of what we do because your success fuels our collective achievements. We are dedicated to fostering a workplace where leaders thrive, innovation flourishes, and every team member feels valued and empowered.

From the moment you join us, you’ll have access to a comprehensive benefits package designed to support your well-being—because when you’re at your best, so are we. This benefits package includes:

• Comprehensive Salary - A salary that reflects your experience and contributions.
• Comprehensive Benefits - Competitive medical and dental coverage, disability insurance, life insurance, and an employee and family assistance program.
• Retirement Savings – A pension plan with employer-matched contributions.
• Unlimited Travel Perks – Enjoy free and discounted flights for you and your travel companions.

If you’re ready to join a team that’s bold, innovative, and fun, we want to hear from you!

Your Career, Your Journey - Join Flair!

At Flair, we’re committed to building an inclusive, equal, and accessible workplace that welcomes diverse talent. We encourage candidates from all backgrounds to apply. If you need accommodation during the selection process, just let us know.

We thank all applicants for their interest in Flair; however, only those selected to continue in the process will be contacted.