Senior Manager In-flight Entertainment

Job description / Role

Senior Manager In-flight Entertainment - Qatar Airways - Doha

As the Senior Manager In-Flight Entertainment, you will play a critical role in ensuring Qatar Airways remains at the leading edge of in-flight entertainment and continues to offer its passengers an enhanced IFE experience. You will lead the sourcing and strategy of IFE content for the airline’s existing and future fleets, while managing day to day production and overseeing monthly expenditure.

One will be responsible to source new IFE content while evaluating the existing content to identify improvements. You will deliver 12 monthly IFE programs for First, Business and Economy class that feature movies, audio, TV programs and games in Arabic and other regional languages, for short and long haul flights. You will also be required to regularly evaluate the departmental and team objectives, plans, procedures and practices to make changes if needed.

A total of 18 staff will report to you via different section heads, you will guide their daily activities, recruit, develop and train to ensure high standards of service delivery. Assessing product performance through passenger statistics, market research and demographics will help you to ensure that your content selection reflects the needs of the customers.

Accountabilities:

Strategy
- Long term strategy with regards to IFE systems and connectivity solutions to deliver, taking into account the length of service for an aircraft.
- Evaluate and analyse market trends and recommend systems/new technologies that will allow the airline to offer an optimal customer experience, providing for long term sustainable growth.
- Provide leadership and input for all strategic plan implementation processes of all onboard IFE and connectivity products.

Operational
- Responsible for recommendations of IFE systems/technologies
- Evaluate various IFE systems and Connectivity solutions available in the market, participate in the RFP process and compile a detailed study along with Technical teams.
- IFE Content/Software management in-line to the budget
- Offer IFE product that is relevant and of high quality to QR passengers.
- IFE programs and content for First, Business and Economy classes that feature movies, television programmes, audio programmes in English, Arabic and other regional languages, for short, medium and long haul flights.
- Evaluate existing content and identify areas for improvement.
- Assist IFS (In-flight services) in the reading material for premium cabin.
- Manage the In-flight Entertainment Guide production with Corp. Comms.
- Evaluate and propose latest headset technologies.
- Responsible for the on-board connectivity costs and revenue i.e. Wifi, GSM telephony, SMS and Data).
- To source new IFE services and negotiate with suppliers for new services and products.

Purchasing
- Key stakeholder in the decision making process of IFE/Connectivity solutions with multi-million dollar budgets.
- Selection of IFE vendors for content services.
- Selection of Headsets.

Management
- Effectively manage a group of the following units delivering a superior in-flight entertainment experience in a 24/7 operation.
- Content
- Connectivity and Special Projects
- Logistics and Operations
- Support Headset Operations
- Develop departmental budget processes and establish tight oversight and control
- Setting output targets for program initiatives and managing collective and individual performance towards these targets.
- Management of complex IFE systems.
- Good understanding of the region with regards to content, ensuring there is nothing offensive for any of our passenger demographics.
- Developing of Graphic User Interface (GUI) design flows to ensure easy use of IFE systems.
- Project manage delivery deadlines with airframe manufacturers up to 24-36 months in advance, and meet strict delivery timelines to ensure airframe manufacturer deadlines are met and aircraft is delivered on schedule.

Leadership
- Leading and motivating the team from different cultural backgrounds to deliver award winning products and services.
- Provide leadership in development of inter-team communication and cohesiveness, sustaining culture and supporting staff during organisational growth.
- Envision and develop direction, goals and priorities for programme teams overall.
- Work with staff to develop systems to ensure delivery of consistent, high quality products and services.
- Train Qatari staff in the above duties

Requirements

- You will hold a Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent, preferably in Communications, Creative or Media Production.
- 10+ years experience in IFE within the airline industry
- Implementation and launch of IFE systems on aircraft.
- Project management.
- Demonstrated success evaluating an array of systems/technologies, selecting and successfully implementing the selected model.
- Highly analytic with the ability to integrate team efforts to achieve goals
- Excellent communication skills.
- Project management and understanding of aircraft delivery deadlines.

Job Specific Skills:
- Good knowledge of IFE hardware systems (Panasonic/Thales/Rockwell Collins) and technical knowhow of monitor chips and aircraft wiring providing seat redundancy, SDS, Metadata entries, Thales (DCMS) Panasonic (MMA).
- Good knowledge of Connectivity solutions.
- Technical knowledge of various bitrate encoding process (WAEA Technical Specifications)
- Technical know-how of implementing changes on aircraft
- Financial understanding of movie/tv/games billing to airlines and project budget forecast.
- AVOD Management (SDS, Web Portal DCMS)
- GUI design / PaxGUI flow chart / Channel line-up
- Timeline Management
- Analog/Digital duplication
- (PRAM) Pre-recorded Announcement management
- Moving Map systems

About the Company

Qatar Airways is proud to be one of the youngest global airlines to serve all six continents, and thanks to our customers’ response to our offerings, we are also the world’s fastest-growing airline. We connect more than 150 destinations on the map every day, with a fleet of the latest-generation aircraft, and an unrivalled level of service from our home and hub, the Five-star airport, Hamad International Airport in Doha, the State of Qatar.

Travel today involves a mix of short, medium and long-haul segments, with more people travelling than ever before. With the breadth of network coverage today, virtually no destination is unreachable. This is why the commitment to service is paramount; as our guests are travelling farther and more frequently than ever before, the experience on board is an important part of the journey itself.

Since our launch in 1997, Qatar Airways has earned many awards and accolades, becoming one of an elite group of airlines worldwide to have earned a 5-star rating by Skytrax. Voted Airline of the Year by Skytrax in 2011, 2012, 2015 and most recently in 2017, Qatar Airways has won the confidence of the travelling public. We have accomplished these goals by focusing on the details – how we run the business, and how you experience our airline.