Galley planning that re-plans every galley a change touches — checked, cited and approved before a caterer loads it
Every galley loaded to spec: no cabin short of a meal, no weight flown for nothing.
See one case, screen by screen ↓Galley planning is deciding what goes in every position of every aircraft galley — ovens, compartments, cart bays and chillers — for each aircraft layout, route and cabin, and publishing that galley load plan to the caterers who load it. Galley Planning brings that airline catering load planning into one place, with six AI agents: when a menu cycle, an equipment change or a tail swap lands, they re-plan every affected galley, check space, ovens, placards, weight and service flow by cabin, and write each caterer's change list. The galley planner answers the questions only a person can and approves every plan before a caterer sees it.
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Galley planning decides what goes in every fixed position of every galley — each cart bay, oven insert, standard-unit compartment and chiller — for every aircraft layout, route and cabin, and publishes that galley load plan to the caterer at each station, who loads to it as the galley loading plan for every flight. The plans live in galley drawings, a legacy galley system and spreadsheets, and the catering weight of each galley feeds the standard catering weights load control uses on every flight.
Then something changes. A new menu cycle, a lighter trolley, a tail swap to an aircraft with a different galley layout or a new aircraft type can make hundreds of plans wrong at once. The planner works out which galleys are touched, counts oven loads and placards again, recomputes the weights and writes a notice to every caterer — over weeks, or in hours when operations swaps a tail before the caterer cut-off. A wrong plan leaves a cabin short of meals, or flies weight nobody uses: almost a quarter of cabin waste is food and drink nobody touched.
Estimated split, in planner days, for one widebody menu cycle re-planned by hand and with the agents. These are estimates, not measurements.
Six agents re-plan every galley a change touches, check each other and simulate the service; the planner answers one question and publishes.
Corvane Airways' winter business menu W27-J2 replaces the cold starter with a hot starter in a casserole on long-haul Asia and Europe flights from December 1. Here is how Dana Whitfield, Galley Planner, Widebody, works through it with the agents on Thursday, October 15, screen by screen, in the working solution.
Dana's Today screen shows 9 items that need her — 2 today, 7 from the winter menu — 405 plans re-planned by the agents this week, and 23 short-loads stopped before a station in the last 30 days, none of which reached an aircraft. Beside the list, the agents report in the conversation: what they read, what they changed and the one thing each needs from her.
Planner agent, 8:31 am: “On ORD–NRT the new menu needs six oven loads and G1 holds four. I moved two to G2 and removed a spare trolley that comes back untouched: −38 kg. One timing question for you.”
The change watcher read Marcus Lindqvist's spec sheet and found 214 plans on 31 routes that the menu touches: 118 on the 787-9 C layout, 6 on the 787-9 P layout from the acquired Pellmar fleet and 90 on the 777-300ER. The planner agent re-planned all 214, the fit and weight checker re-checked each from the drawings and placards, and the service flow agent ran each service. 207 pass every check and can be approved in bulk with a reason; 7 have a question.
“7 questions for Dana Whitfield · 207 ready to approve.”
The first of the seven opens on the 787-9 N818CV — 48 business, 24 premium economy and 218 economy seats — drawn in plan view with G1 to G4 marked, and G2 at door 2, aft-facing, in front elevation. The new menu needs 96 business casseroles, 16 to an oven load: six loads, and G1 has four ovens. The planner agent moved two loads to G2's OV3 and OV4, serves business rows 9–12 from there, and marked every position it changed.
Checks under the galley: Space, all 88 positions fit · Ovens, 6 loads, G1 4 + G2 2 · Weight, −38 kg, W&B approved · Short-load, every cabin loaded to seats.
Dana types “Why remove the spare trolley?” beside the galley. The planner agent answers from Northmere Flight Kitchen's September return-load report: the spare bread and dessert half-trolley in G1 T5 came back untouched on 22 of 31 flights, 71%. The new menu plates dessert from galley stowage, so the trolley has no job, and removing it takes 38 kg off every flight. Each source is numbered and opens the passage.
Dana opens G2's T7. It holds chiller drawers with the 32 casseroles for rows 9–12, 22 kg, where the duty-free cart used to stand. The reason is one sentence with three sources — the galley drawing, the equipment library and food safety rule FS-3 — and the duty-free cart, which needs no chilling, has moved to the free full-size bay T9 in G4.
“The only chilled bay in G2. It held the duty-free cart, which needs no chill; the 32 casseroles must stay chilled until the ovens.”
Dana tries the chiller drawers in T6 instead. A move is a question, not a silent edit, and the planner agent answers at once with its sources: T6 is not chilled, so the casseroles would sit out of chill for about 55 minutes before OV3 starts, and FS-3 allows 30. She undoes it. A move that breaks nothing can be kept, with a reason.
“That breaks the chill rule. T6 is not chilled… Undo it, or ask me for another way.”
G2 is worked by one flight attendant at 2L. Its two ovens heat the starters first, then the mains, so business mains for rows 9–12 are ready at T+1:05, ten minutes later than today's T+0:55. Service standard IS-J-04 allows business mains to start up to T+1:15 on flights over 10 hours, so the call is Dana's. The fit and weight checker, working from the drawings and never from the planner agent's working, agrees: 3,019 kg becomes 2,981 kg, the index moves +0.9 against a ±1.5 tolerance, and Tom Okafor approved the new standard catering weight at 10:22 am.
“Can the aft business service start 10 minutes later?”
Dana answers “Yes, start at T+1:05”. Approve and publish opens the sign-off: effective December 1 from Chicago and December 2 from Tokyo, 6 lines, −38 kg, aft business service +10 minutes, 5 of 5 checks passed. She picks the reason code “Within service standard IS-J-04”, keeps the statement for the record, confirms she reviewed the six changes and the weights, and publishes to Northmere Flight Kitchen at ORD and Hanazono Inflight Catering at NRT.
“Checked the proposal, the checker's agreement and the service-flow answer.”
Hanazono's change list says what changes from December 1, position by position: hot starters and mains in G1's ovens for rows 1–8, chiller drawers in G1 T6, rows 9–12 served from G2's ovens and T7, the spare half-trolley removed, the duty-free cart moved from G2 T7 to G4 T9, desserts plated from galley stowage. The flight's catering weight goes from 3,019 kg to 2,981 kg. The caterer brief writer sent it only after Dana approved, and tracks the acknowledgment against the 48-hour SLA.
Operations swapped N829CV, a 787-9 in the P layout, onto CV 917 Chicago–London Heathrow for Friday at 6:20 pm. With the old plan, premium economy would be 3 meals short against 27 booked, 6 business meal sets would fly unused, and 2 economy breakfast carts would not fit the smaller G4. The agents re-planned for the P layout — −22 kg, under the W&B threshold — and Dana approves, edits or rejects before Northmere's cut-off at 6:20 am tomorrow.
Short-load guard: “3 passengers without a meal. Business would carry 6 unused sets, and 2 economy carts do not fit its G4.”
The same winter menu, seen by four of the people who carry it — what a menu cycle looked like, and what it looks like now.
Six agents re-plan every galley a change touches, check each other and simulate the service; the planner answers one question and publishes.
Reads menu specs, equipment notices, tail swaps from operations control and new-type drawings, and opens a change case listing every affected galley plan.
Re-plans each affected galley position by position — ovens, compartments, cart bays and chillers — moves items between galleys when one is full, and takes out what the caterers' return-load reports show flies back untouched.
Re-derives space, oven loads, placard and restraint limits, and the weight by galley and index, from the drawings, placards and equipment library alone, and agrees or disagrees in writing.
Simulates the service by cabin, minute by minute — oven cycles, cart runs and crew positions — against the service standards, and asks the one timing question a person must answer.
Checks plan, tail and bookings by cabin 72 hours ahead, and reads the caterers' return-load reports for over-loads.
Writes each station's change list in plain words, one line per change with where, what and from when, sends it after approval, tracks the acknowledgment and drafts cited answers to caterer questions.
The planner answers the agents' question and publishes; the W&B engineer approves weight changes over the threshold. The agents propose; a named person decides.
Ask in plain words, or tell the agents what to do. Every answer cites the menu spec, drawing, booking or report it came from, and nothing changes in a plan until a person approves it.
Why does ORD–NRT need G2's ovens?
The winter menu adds a hot starter: 96 business casseroles, 16 a load, so six oven loads. G1 has four ovens. The planner agent moved two loads to G2 and the duty-free cart to G4, and removed a spare trolley that came back untouched on 71% of flights: −38 kg.
Which flights could be short of meals in the next 72 hours?
Three need a person. CV 917 ORD–LHR: the swap to N829CV leaves premium economy 3 meals short. CV 455 SFO–FRA: premium economy 26 booked, 24 loaded. CV 301 ORD–SFO: first class, with Jordan Pike. Six more were handled by rule.
What did the lightweight trolley change for weight and balance?
The new trolley weighs 17.2 kg instead of 21.3 kg. With 34 trolleys, the 787-9 economy figure falls 139 kg, index −0.3: over the 25 kg threshold, so Tom Okafor approves it. Standard weights must stay current.
Draft the change list for the Tokyo caterer
Done: six lines for Hanazono (NRT), effective Dec 1, flight weight 3,019 → 2,981 kg. It goes when you approve LP-881; they acknowledge within 48 hours.
13 screens from the working solution, on its sample data. Pick one to see it large.
The thresholds and rules the agents escalate by are settings Corvane's administrator owns. Every change is logged with the old and new value.
| Setting | Default | Choose from |
|---|---|---|
| W&B sign-off above (kg per galley) | 25 kg | Any number of kilograms |
| W&B sign-off above (index units) | 0.5 | Any number of index units |
| Over-load flag above booked | 5% | Any percentage |
| Caterer notice for a menu cycle | 21 days | Any number of days |
| Caterer notice for a swap | 12 hours | Any number of hours |
| Acknowledgment SLA | 48 hours | Any number of hours |
| Agent confidence below which a person decides | 0.85 | Any value from 0 to 1 |
| Rules | All seven on | Chilled items only in chilled positions (FS-3) · Business mains by T+1:15 on flights over 10 hours (IS-J-04) · Items returned untouched on more than 60% of flights proposed for removal · Any cabin loaded below booked blocks publication · Always on: certified bay within its placard (14 CFR 121.576), special meals never moved or removed without a person, agents never publish, send or change a caterer order inside the cut-off |
Every figure is labelled: a target the solution is built to, an estimate, a typical published result, or a proven one.
“demo” = seen in the working solution, on its sample data · “target” = the design goal, measured in the live solution · “estimated” = our estimate (the days split) · “typical” = published figures (IATA cabin waste: 0.94 kg per passenger, 23% of it untouched food and drink). Regulations are named as context: 14 CFR 121.576 (galley equipment secured) and FAA AC 120-27F (standard weights kept current). Corvane Airways, its caterers and the people named on this page are fictional — characters and sample data in the working solution.
Galley planning is deciding what goes in every position of every aircraft galley — ovens, compartments, cart bays and chillers — for each aircraft layout, route and cabin, and publishing that galley load plan to the caterers who load it. Galley Planning brings that airline catering load planning into one place, with six AI agents: when a menu cycle, an equipment change or a tail swap lands, they re-plan every affected galley, check space, ovens, placards, weight and service flow by cabin, and write each caterer's change list. The galley planner answers the questions only a person can and approves every plan before a caterer sees it.
The change watcher reads the menu spec and finds every plan it touches; the planner agent re-plans each galley position by position; the fit and weight checker re-derives each plan independently; and the service flow agent simulates the service. In the working solution, one winter business menu touched 214 plans: 207 passed every check and 7 came to the galley planner with one question each.
The short-load guard checks the new tail's galley layout against the plan and the bookings by cabin, and the planner agent re-plans for the new layout. In the working solution, a swap to a 787-9 in another layout would have left premium economy 3 meals short and 2 economy carts that did not fit; the agents re-planned it for the new galley layout, and the galley planner approves, edits or rejects the re-plan before the caterer cut-off.
Every plan carries its catering weight by galley and the index shift. A change over 25 kg per galley or 0.5 index units waits for the weight and balance engineer's approval before it publishes, so load control never computes with a weight nobody told it about. FAA AC 120-27F expects an operator using standard weights to keep them current.
Yes. The planner agent puts every cart in a certified bay of its size, within its placard, and the fit and weight checker re-checks each position against the drawings, placards and restraint — 14 CFR 121.576 requires galley equipment and serving carts not in use to be secured against shifting. Chilled items stay in chilled bays, and the agents never use a non-certified position. If the planner moves a cart, the agents say what the move breaks, with the source.
The catering loading plan a station works from changes only after the galley planner approves it. Then the caterer brief writer sends each station a plain change list — one line per change, with where, what and from when — plus the weights, through the caterer portal or by email. It tracks the acknowledgment against the SLA, sends reminders, and drafts cited answers to caterer questions for Catering Operations to approve.
Yes. The agents never publish a plan, send anything before a person approves, change a caterer order inside the cut-off without a person, remove a special meal or accept a timing beyond the service standard. The galley planner approves, edits or rejects every plan with a reason code; the weight and balance engineer approves weight changes over the threshold; Inflight Product decides timing beyond the standard. Every step is on the audit trail.
The Agentic Solution Engine builds and deploys it from your requirements and documents — your galley drawings, equipment library, menu specs, service standards and current loading lists — and it goes live once every quality gate has passed. Setup goes in order: fleet layouts, equipment library, service standards, caterers and stations, rules and thresholds, then connections.
Every caterer line checked against what was loaded, and every missed penalty claimed.
1-min demoCatering Demand ForecastingMeals ordered for the passengers who board, not the ones booked, and no cabin left short.
1-min demoOnboard Retail ManagementEvery flight's sales reconciled, and every sell-out turned into the next load.
1-min demoWe'll run Galley Planning on your own galley drawings, menu specs and loading lists, for one fleet and one menu cycle.