Role overview
What you'll be stepping into
The Chief Customer Services Officer (CCSO) is accountable for the safe, compliant, consistent, and commercially responsible delivery of the Uganda Airlines customer experience across the passenger journey.
The role provides executive leadership for cabin services, ground operations, passenger handling, baggage services, travel-document verification, ramp and turnaround coordination, ground support equipment, catering and lounges, service recovery, customer complaints, and claims.
The CCSO establishes service standards, ensures operational readiness and regulatory compliance, protects customers during normal and disrupted operations, and works across the Company to deliver a dependable service promise that strengthens loyalty, reputation, and sustainable growth.
2. KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES
(a) Customer Service Strategy and Executive Leadership
Develop and execute the customer service strategy, annual service plan, manpower priorities, and budget in support of corporate objectives and the Uganda Airlines brand promise.
Translate customer needs, operational requirements, and commercial priorities into clear service standards, accountable owners, delivery milestones, and measurable outcomes.
Advise the Chief Executive Officer and Board on customer experience, service risks, operational readiness, complaints and claims trends, and material service investments.
Chair customer service performance reviews and ensure timely corrective action where service, safety, punctuality, baggage, catering, lounge, or customer-recovery performance falls below target.
(b) End-to-End Customer Journey and Service Standards
Own the design and consistent delivery of customer service standards from airport arrival and check-in through boarding, in-flight service, arrival, baggage delivery, and post-travel support.
Define service procedures for different customer groups, including premium customers, customers requiring special assistance, unaccompanied minors, disrupted passengers, and customers with accessibility needs.
Ensure service standards are practical, trained, measured, and aligned across cabins, airport, catering, lounges, commercial, and digital touchpoints.
Use customer insight, operational data, and frontline feedback to remove recurring pain points and improve the customer proposition.
(c) Cabin Services, Safety and Crew Performance
Provide executive oversight of cabin service operations, safety standards and training, service product and grooming, senior pursers, and cabin crew.
Ensure cabin services comply with applicable civil aviation (UCAA) requirements, approved manuals, safety procedures, security requirements, and the authority of the aircraft commander.
Ensure adequate numbers of qualified, current, medically fit, and properly rostered cabin crew are available for the approved operating programme.
Oversee cabin crew recruitment requirements, induction, recurrent training, checking, performance management, grooming, conduct, and service consistency.
Promote professional standards, crew resource management, fatigue awareness, safety reporting, just culture, and disciplined compliance with standard operating procedures.
(d) Ground Operations and Passenger Handling
Provide executive oversight of Entebbe hub and network ground operations, station management, passenger check-in, boarding, flight monitoring, travel-document verification, and passenger assistance.
Ensure stations are operationally ready and comply with Company procedures, airport requirements, immigration and destination-document controls, security obligations, and applicable service-level agreements.
Maintain effective controls over passenger acceptance, denied boarding, special-service requests, boarding reconciliation, baggage acceptance, and other departure-control processes.
Lead the business and technical evaluation, recommendation, selection, and ongoing oversight of ground handlers and catering service providers across the entire network, working through approved procurement, legal, finance, safety, and quality processes to ensure selected providers can meet Uganda Airlines' safety, service, operational-readiness, cost, and contractual-performance requirements.
(e) Ramp, Turnaround and Ground Support Equipment
Oversee ramp activities, turnaround coordination, load-control interfaces, aircraft handling, loading supervision, cabin grooming, transport support, and use of ground support equipment.
Ensure safe and punctual turnarounds through clear milestones, role ownership, escalation protocols, and close coordination with Flight Operations, Maintenance, Security, Catering, and airport partners.
Ensure ground support equipment is suitable, available, maintained, safely operated, and supported by competent personnel and reliable records.
Drive reduction of controllable ground delays, aircraft damage, handling irregularities, unsafe practices, and avoidable turnaround failures.
(f) Baggage Services and Tracing
Set and enforce standards for baggage acceptance, reconciliation, loading, transfer, delivery, tracing, and customer communication.
Ensure effective use of WorldTracer and other approved systems, timely file creation and updates, proper custody of baggage, and accurate reporting across stations and service providers.
Review mishandled baggage trends, root causes, recovery time, compensation exposure, and repeat failures; require corrective action at responsible stations and providers.
Ensure baggage claims and compensation are handled fairly, consistently, and within applicable conditions of carriage, conventions, laws, and approved authority limits.
(g) Catering, Lounges and In-Flight Service Product
Lead the catering and lounge strategy, standards, supplier arrangements, menus, provisioning controls, service presentation, and product-development priorities.
Establish, document, and continuously improve ground and inflight service standards, ensuring they are practical, trained, measured, and consistently applied across stations, lounges, cabins, and service providers in line with the Uganda Airlines service promise.
Ensure catering and lounge services meet food-safety, hygiene, security, special-meal, allergen-control, quality, and regulatory requirements.
Align catering uplift and lounge capacity with schedules, aircraft type, passenger loads, route profiles, cabin configuration, and approved service specifications.
Control wastage, stock, equipment, service recovery, and supplier performance while protecting product quality and customer value.
(h) Customer Relations, Complaints, Claims and Service Recovery
Establish accessible and consistent processes for receiving, investigating, resolving, and learning from complaints, compliments, claims, and customer feedback.
Set service-recovery and compensation principles within approved conditions of carriage, laws, policies, and delegated authority, with appropriate Legal and Finance review.
Ensure customers affected by delays, cancellations, misconnections, denied boarding, baggage disruption, or service failure receive timely information, care, and resolution.
Monitor complaint volumes, ageing, recurrence, compensation cost, root causes, and customer sentiment, and ensure responsible departments close systemic issues.
Provide executive oversight of sensitive, escalated, reputational, or high-value customer cases and ensure accurate records and defensible decisions.
(i) Safety, Security, Quality and Regulatory Compliance
Ensure Customer Services activities comply with applicable civil aviation, occupational health and safety, aviation security, dangerous goods, public health, consumer-protection, data-protection, and accessibility requirements.
Support the Company's Safety Management System by ensuring hazards are reported, risks are assessed, mitigations are implemented, and safety actions are closed effectively.
Maintain readiness for UCAA, IOSA, security, quality, and customer-service audits; ensure findings and corrective actions are closed within agreed timelines.
Ensure controlled manuals, procedures, training records, operational records, and service-provider documentation remain current, complete, and accessible.
Stop or escalate any customer service or ground activity where safety, security, regulatory compliance, or aircraft protection cannot be assured.
(j) Operational Resilience and Disruption Management
Ensure customer care is fully integrated into disruption plans, the Integrated Operations Control Centre, and station recovery arrangements.
Establish practical procedures for re-accommodation support, meal and hotel care, special assistance, baggage recovery, customer communication, and airport crowd management.
Provide visible executive leadership during significant disruptions and ensure decisions protect safety, vulnerable customers, service fairness, reputation, and network recovery.
Conduct post-disruption reviews, quantify service and claims impact, and require corrective action for avoidable failures.
(k) Financial, Supplier and Resource Management
Own the Customer Services budget and resource plan, ensuring prudent expenditure, reliable forecasting, and priority for safety, compliance, and operational continuity.
Prepare credible business cases for people, training, facilities, lounges, equipment, service improvements, and customer-support technology.
Ensure ground handling, catering, lounge, transport, grooming, and other service contracts contain clear standards, measures, audit rights, escalation arrangements, and remedies.
Monitor supplier performance, invoices, credits, penalties, wastage, and customer-impact costs, and ensure value is obtained without weakening safety or service standards.
(l) People Leadership and Stakeholder Management
Build a capable, ethical, and accountable customer services leadership team; set objectives, review performance, develop successors, and address capability or conduct gaps.
Maintain visible engagement with cabin crew, airport teams, and service partners, ensuring frontline concerns and improvement ideas receive timely attention.
Promote close cooperation with Operations, Commercial, Safety, Security, Finance, People and Culture, Legal, Information Technology, and Corporate Planning.
Represent Uganda Airlines with regulators, airports, ground handlers, caterers, lounge providers, immigration authorities, tourism bodies, and customer organizations.
3. MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE
Bachelor's degree in Aviation Management, Hospitality Management, Business Administration, Tourism, Customer Experience, Operations Management, or another relevant discipline from a recognized institution, or the equivalent in Airline Commercial experience.
A Master's degree in Aviation Management, Hospitality Management, Business Administration, Tourism, Customer Experience, Operations Management, or another relevant discipline from a recognized institution, or the equivalent in Airline Commercial or service industry working experience of ten (10) years.
Professional training in airline customer service, ground operations, cabin services, safety management, service quality, hospitality, or leadership is a MUST.
At least twelve (12) years of progressively responsible aviation, transport, or complex service-industry experience, including at least ten (10) years in a senior leadership role with substantial responsibility for people, budgets, and delivery of multi-location service.
Demonstrated airline experience across several of the following areas: ground operations, passenger handling, cabin services, catering, lounges, baggage services, disruption management, customer relations, or claims is a MUST.
Sound working knowledge of applicable civil aviation safety and security requirements, passenger-handling controls, service-provider oversight, consumer obligations, and airline conditions of carriage.
Proven experience leading service transformation, managing major operational disruptions, overseeing outsourced providers, and presenting executive recommendations based on customer and operational data.
Must be 45 years and above.
4. KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND COMPETENCIES
Customer experience strategy and service design
Airline ground operations and passenger handling
Cabin service, cabin safety, and crew leadership
Catering, lounge, and inflight-product management
Baggage operations, tracing, and claims governance
Disruption management and service recovery
Safety, security, quality, and regulatory judgement
Supplier, contract, and service-level management
Financial management and resource prioritization
Data-led performance management and root-cause analysis
Clear executive communication and stakeholder influence
People leadership, coaching, and succession development
Calm, fair, and decisive leadership under pressure
How to apply