Catering to your aircraft in Sulaymaniyah.
Sulaymaniyah is cooler than the plains south of it, which changes what we pack for ORSJ: sturdy rice, sauces apart, bread that re-crisps. Catering by crew, for crew.
We know the galley, the diet card and the 5 a.m. re-plate — because we lived them. So we built the caterer we always wished we could call.
Fourteen years on VIP and head-of-state cabins. Can plate for twelve in a G650 galley and still land it hot.
The one who reads every diet card twice. If it says no cross-contact, it means no cross-contact.
Answers at 5 a.m. when the leg moved overnight. Same-day swaps are her love language.
Sulaymaniyah sits in the Kurdish highlands, and the private jet menu for ISU is built from what that country grows and cooks. Local specialities start with dolma, vine leaves and onion shells stuffed with rice and herbs, which hold well in a drawer and reheat evenly in a small oven. Kubba, the semolina shell around spiced lamb, travels best fried and finished in the oven. Lamb with rice and a tomato stew is the centre of the inflight menu, with the sauce packed apart so the rice stays dry. Private jet food from the region also means flatbread, white cheese, walnuts, dried apricots and pomegranate, all of which keep through a long leg. For Sulaymaniyah and the wider As-Sulaymaniyyah Governorate we label each dish with the seat number and the way it finishes: Oven, Sauce apart or Chilled.
The inflight menu for Sulaymaniyah leans on the Kurdish table: grilled lamb, rice cooked with vermicelli, herbs and tomatoes, flatbread still soft from the oven. These are local specialities, and each one is pressed into the logic of a galley. Grilled kebab is portioned per seat and finished in the oven. Yoghurt, cucumber and mint travel cold and go in the drawer. The private jet menu for the As-Sulaymaniyyah Governorate also carries seasonal fruit, figs, melon and pomegranate, plus nuts for the cabin. Private jet food for this region is judged by what survives a climb out of a 2,494 ft field: rice that holds, sauces that stay apart, bread that re-crisps.
Tail, pax, diets, timing. One message — no portal, no quote form. Answered at any hour, by a flight attendant.
Leak-proof boxes, marked by guest and restriction, with reheating times written on the lid.
Two minutes out of the drawer. Whatever you ordered for the crew comes in the same delivery, and one clean invoice follows.
Jalal Talabani International sits at 2,494 ft in the hills of Kurdistan, so a cabin that leaves ISU is a dry, cool one and the food has to travel accordingly. Private jet catering here is built around that altitude and around what your galley can actually do with it. Whether the brief is inflight catering for a corporate group or aviation catering for a charter, the trip support starts with the type, the headcount and the handover at your FBO. For business aviation catering and executive jet catering we build the menu around what your oven and drawers can take. Diplomatic flight catering passes through protocol first, and cabin crew meals are boxed apart from the guest trays. In-flight catering for Sulaymaniyah is cooked for the galley, not for the plate.
Business jet catering at ISU starts with the cabin: a corporate jet catering brief for eight is a different order from a charter flight catering brief for two. VIP flight catering here uses the Kurdish table, and luxury inflight catering is built around lamb, herbs and fresh fruit. A private jet chef writes a bespoke menu around your galley, not around a template.
A state visit aircraft catering order at Jalal Talabani International is cleared first and cooked after. Government flight catering and head of state flight catering run with traceability and discretion, and VIP aviation catering for delegations keeps the labels to seat numbers only.
Allergens hide in different places in Kurdish cooking: walnuts in dips and pastries, sesame in bread and tahini, wheat in kubba shells. At Sulaymaniyah we build each special meal on its own board, in its own box, with the seat number on the lid. Halal is the default for lamb and chicken; kosher is sealed and sourced separately; vegan is easy with rice, lentils, vegetables and herbs, and gluten free means no shell, no bulgur. Kids meals, allergen-free plates and other special meals are written into the order before cooking begins.
A sheet per guest. Separate boards, separate boxes.
Sealed, certificate in the same box.
Their own menu, nothing to cut at altitude.
Vegan, low-carb, light — composed, never compromised.
On the flight deck at Sulaymaniyah, flight crew meals and pilot meals travel in crew meal boxes marked CREW, kept apart from the guest trays. Cockpit meals are built to be eaten one-handed between radio calls. Different meals for pilots are packed on request when operator policy asks for it, so captain and first officer never share a dish. Cabin crew meals and crew catering for the cabin side are boxed separately. All of it is a catalogue item you ask for and we invoice with the rest of the order.
FBO catering at Sulaymaniyah means catering delivery to the FBO, where your handling agent receives it. The general aviation terminal is the point of handover, and ground handling catering is coordinated with your handling agent for airside access. Handling agent catering follows your slot.
Whatever is on the ramp at Sulaymaniyah sets how the loading goes. A light jet or midsize business jet takes a cart to the door, while a heavier cabin may call for a high loader at the door to lift the galley boxes. Airside catering delivery runs through your FBO or handling agent. Tell us the type and the galley and we plan the aircraft provisioning around the real oven, drawers and chilled space. Galley catering starts with how much space the galley has, not how long the menu is.
Mention it when you orderCertified, inspected, with cold-chain records filed against your trip.
Whichever terminal you park at, handover is at the aircraft, on your slot.
Allergen sheet per guest, halal and kosher on request, sealed and labelled.
Itemised and trip-report ready, sent after the leg.
ISU serves Sulaymaniyah, a city in the highlands of northern Iraq, and the field works as a small business aviation hub for the Kurdistan region. Airport catering here runs through the general aviation terminal and your handling agent, and FBO services and ground handling services decide where the boxes are received. The 2,494 ft elevation also shapes how food holds in a galley on departure.
Business aviation at ISU is a small, steady flow rather than a rush: executive jet catering for visiting delegations, inflight catering for charters, aviation catering for crews turning round. As a business aviation hub for the region it sees business aviation catering of every kind, including diplomatic flight catering cleared by protocol and in-flight catering built around the galley. Cabin crew meals and crew meals are boxed on request, separate from the guest trays.
Iraq controls imported food at customs, so the food for Sulaymaniyah is cooked and packed in-country and handed over airside. FBO services and ground handling services at ORSJ, through your handling agent, manage airside access to the aircraft. Tell us early if the headcount or the dietary list changes, since a business aviation hub this size has little spare capacity.
Average rating from the cabin crew and pilots we cater for.
“Rather than an elaborate service at ISU, our 7 guests wanted a seafood starter and warm vegetable sides, organised sensibly around limited fridge space. This experience of in-flight catering gave us a useful reference for managing final order confirmation on another departure. After a final adjustment to the side dishes, The Galley Girls gave us one revised order summary to work from. The note about the desserts was easy to spot, and we could brief the rest of the team quickly.”
“It was the packing plan I cared about at Jalal Talabani International Airport, with 8 servings of a seafood starter and warm vegetable sides and a revised passenger count to consider. I gave The Galley Girls our storage brief and asked for the main courses to arrive in individual containers. Separating the desserts from the first service items helped us avoid opening boxes we did not yet need. My main takeaway from this vip inflight catering order was the practical approach to catering handover.”
“Nothing about the 4 guest order at ORSJ called for excess complexity: just a mezze selection with flatbreads and sensible planning for a late menu amendment. Instead of asking us to improvise, The Galley Girls explained how the main courses could be arranged during service. It made a difference to have the desserts ready without cluttering the galley work area during preparation. For private jet catering, that attention to written menu details made the order noticeably easier to manage.”
Cost depends on what the cabin eats. Seasonal walnut and fig plates are modest, a lamb main with kubba is more, and allergen-free plates need a separate prep. Private jet catering for Sulaymaniyah is quoted per dish and per seat, and the quote comes with the order.
Lead time here is shaped by clearance rather than cooking: the office signs off the menu, the names stay off the labels, and the packing follows. Delegation and state visit flights into Jalal Talabani International are handled 24/7, and late changes are handled too.
Customs rules on imported food in Iraq are strict, so what lands in the galley is made locally rather than brought in. A passenger count that changes at the last minute means we add or remove seat-numbered boxes, and the rest stays as planned.
For two services on one long leg, yes, you can bring food, though most crews prefer to order locally. It avoids customs questions at ORSJ and lets us time the finish: Oven for the first, Chilled for the second.
Is catering part of a charter? No, and the repositioning case shows why: with the cabin empty, the order may be just two crew boxes. You ask, we price it, and it is invoiced as its own line.
Tail, pax and diets — a flight attendant takes it from there, day or night.
