Head of Network Operations & OCC - Virgin Atlantic

Salary: Competitive

Hours: 37.5 Per Week

Location: Crawley, West Sussex

Contract: Permanent

Closing Date: 24th February 2025

In a nutshell

We are seeking an exceptional Head of Network Operations & OCC to join our Customer and Operations team. This role is crucial to the success of our operations, our customers, and our colleagues. As the Head of Network Operations & OCC, you will play a pivotal role in ensuring the smooth and efficient functioning of our global operations. You will work closely with various departments to deliver a safe, efficient, and punctual flying programme. The OCC is a 24/7 operation, making your role essential in leading continuous oversight and resilience, significantly impacting our overall performance and customer satisfaction of the airline.

This opportunity is fundamental to ensure the operational strategy meets our objectives, operational performance, and ambitions. Therefore, we are for an experienced operational leader who is resilient, highly organised, influential, has strong decision making and judgement and is a brilliant leader. These qualities are essential for navigating the complexities of this role and driving our team towards success. Can you deliver for our customers, lead our people, and ensure our operations team play their part in our vision of becoming the Most Loved Travel Company? If so, this might be the role for you.

Day to day

1. Manage the day-to-day and published period operational programme, ensuring it meets our schedule planning parameter requirements and delivers the high levels of safety and punctuality we expect.
2. Lead the overall OCC team, enhancing performance and engagement across the various operational disciplines. Continue to develop the OCC team to ensure operational oversight and resilience, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and professional growth.
3. Continuously evaluate operations planning processes and provide recommendations for improvements. Anticipate risks and address challenges, including maintaining operational playbooks in collaboration with the business resilience team. Serve as the Crisis Command Centre lead for Operations and support the OCC out of hours as the on-call senior leader.
4. Develop and oversee the creation of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to ensure full compliance with regulatory body requirements and the highest level of safety standards are maintained.
5. Oversee the development of future schedules through the FlyRed planning cycle to ensure operational objectives and performance ambitions are met, whilst making trade-offs to support commercial opportunity and manage internal and external risks and opportunities impacting the flying programme.
6. Lead cross-functional Operations Continuous Improvement forums and initiatives, playing a crucial role in driving operational excellence and fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
7. Responsible for setting the future operational strategy and target setting across operational teams, acting as focal for data and insights and performance reporting to the Leadership Team.

About You

You have experience of the airline industry within an operational or commercial background, with a strong appreciation of the demands of a long haul operation to enable you to manage the day-to-day and published period operational programme effectively. You can demonstrate how you can continuously evaluate operations planning processes and provide recommendations for improvements, ensuring that the organisation remains agile and responsive to changing conditions. You have experience in managing operational disruption and crisis situations, building relationships with senior stakeholders to influence operational decision-making and ensure alignment with our strategic objectives. You are gifted at influencing – including a broad array of internal stakeholders, with the diligence and energy required to pivot at pace and provide recommendations that match the needs of our customers and business. You quickly assess risks and opportunities, creating and implementing deliverable solutions in an operational environment. This includes the critical skill of analysing large volumes of data and identifying trends to inform decision-making. You have experience leading cross-functional Operations Continuous Improvement forums and initiatives, driving operational excellence and fostering a culture of continuous improvement.

Does the above sound like you? Then we'd love to hear from you!

Our recipe for leadership

At Virgin Atlantic, our leaders empower teams to thrive through collaboration, innovation, and excellence. Explore our Leadership Recipe and discover the 20 core ingredients that define what it means to lead with us, driving our mission to be the most loved travel company and achieve sustainable profit.

Be yourself

Our customers come from all walks of life and so do our colleagues. That’s why we’re proud to be an equal opportunity employer and actively encourage applications from all backgrounds. At Virgin Atlantic, we believe everyone can take on the world - no matter your age, gender, gender identity, gender expression, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disabilities, religion, or beliefs. We celebrate difference and everything that makes our colleagues unique by upholding an inclusive environment in which we can all thrive. So that everyone at Virgin Atlantic can be themselves and know they belong. To make your journey with us accessible and individual to you, we encourage you to let us know if you’d like a little extra help with your application, or if you have any individual requirements at any stage along your recruitment journey. We are here to support you, so please reach out to our team, (recruitment@fly.virgin.com) feeling confident that we’ve got your individual considerations covered.