Catering to your aircraft in Manzanillo.
MZO runs on hurricane-season dates and light jets, so the menu has to move with the plan. We pack Granma Province food for your galley, crew meals on request and invoiced like the rest, and hand it over at the aircraft.
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.
Granma Province is sugar, rice, citrus and the Gulf of Guacanayabo, and that shows in a private jet menu cut for MUMZ. Local specialities that travel well: ropa vieja, a slow-cooked shredded beef that keeps its sauce in a sealed pot; arroz con pollo; and congrí, rice with black beans, packed in a hotel pan for re-plating.
Seafood from the gulf makes the lead inflight menu: grilled snapper and spiny lobster, each portioned per seat with the garlic mojo apart. For private jet food that stays cold, we build fruit boards with mango, guava and pineapple, plus yuca and plantain on the side.
A private jet menu for Manzanillo also means local specialities for the cabin snack basket: cassava chips, fried green plantain, guava paste with cheese. Granma Province is also known for its coffee grown in the Sierra Maestra hills, which we pack in a flask for the galley. Ask for any of it from Manzanillo and we cook it for the aircraft you fly.
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.
Manzanillo's Sierra Maestra International sits on flat coastal ground below the Sierra Maestra range, and a trip into MUMZ usually means a small cabin and a thin galley. Private jet catering here is planned around that: what the oven can finish, what stays chilled, what the handling agent can carry to the apron. Inflight catering for this field leans on Granma Province seafood, fruit and root vegetables, and aviation catering paperwork follows Cuban customs rules. Business aviation catering and executive jet catering orders are taken by phone or email, 24/7.
Business jet catering at Manzanillo is usually a short, light-cabin brief: four to eight seats, one oven, sometimes none. Corporate jet catering here means cold plates that keep, a hot dish that finishes at the aircraft, and a bespoke menu cut by seat. VIP flight catering and charter flight catering follow the same rule, and a private jet chef will adapt luxury inflight catering to whatever the galley can do.
Government flight catering at Manzanillo follows protocol first: the menu is cleared before cooking, handled by a named team, and traced from kitchen to aircraft. Head of state flight catering and state visit aircraft catering mean sealed trays, no names on the labels, only seat numbers. VIP aviation catering stays discreet, and your protocol office signs off the plan.
Special meals at MUMZ are a procedure adapted to Cuban cooking, where pork fat, lard in beans and shared fryers hide allergens. Kosher, halal, vegan and gluten free meals are cooked on separate boards and sealed per seat, allergen free trays are marked with the seat number, and kids meals stay mild and plain. The brief for each guest goes in with the order, before any cooking starts.
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.
Ask for crew meals when you place the order at Manzanillo, and we add them as a line of the same invoice. Flight crew meals travel in their own box, never with the passenger trays. Pilot meals are cooked in two versions, different meals for pilots, and cockpit meals stay simple. Crew catering and crew meal boxes arrive at the FBO ready for the handling agent.
Your catering is handed to the FBO or the handling agent at Manzanillo, who carry it to the aircraft. FBO catering at Sierra Maestra International is delivered to the general aviation terminal side, where ground handling catering meets the apron. Give your handling agent catering contact the tail and the slot so the catering delivery to the FBO lines up with the arrival.
Aircraft at Manzanillo are mostly light and midsize jets, so galley catering usually travels in insulated boxes carried to the door by hand. When a larger type comes in, airside catering delivery and aircraft provisioning change shape, and your handling agent should arrange a high loader for the door height. Tell us the type and where the galley sits so the load fits the carts you have.
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.
Sierra Maestra International serves Manzanillo on the Gulf of Guacanayabo in Granma Province, with a single runway and a small terminal that handles general aviation alongside scheduled flights. Elevation is 112 ft, the terrain is flat, and the sierra rises to the north. Airport catering here is simple to plan once the slot is known.
Business aviation at Manzanillo is quiet and seasonal, as a business aviation hub it is minor but real, and inflight catering is ordered per flight. In-flight catering for light jets stays compact. Executive jet catering follows the same routine, aviation catering for delegations is formal, business aviation catering is hand-checked, diplomatic flight catering is protocol-led, and cabin crew meals ride in their own box.
Cuban customs inspect incoming fresh food, so FBO services and ground handling services at Manzanillo advise cooked local catering over carried-in produce. Your handling agent knows the current practice; paperwork travels with the order for the apron check.
Average rating from the cabin crew and pilots we cater for.
“As the person coordinating beef fillet with roasted potatoes for 9 passengers at Sierra Maestra International Airport, I needed an arrangement that considered a changing departure schedule. With several people involved, The Galley Girls kept the breakfast portions and delivery arrangements together in a concise order update. We could account for the desserts before passing the boxes to the cabin team, without a lengthy unpacking exercise. For airport catering, that attention to cabin service sequence made the order noticeably easier to manage.”
“The cabin briefing at MUMZ included 9 passenger meals, a request for poached fish with steamed rice, and instructions addressing two separate meal services. After a final adjustment to the fruit plates, The Galley Girls gave us one revised order summary to work from. For our team, the strongest part of their inflight catering was how they handled portion planning. There was no need to reconstruct the side dishes quantities from several messages during the final departure checks.”
“Good preparation made the difference at MZO, where 2 guests expected avocado toast components and breakfast fruit despite two separate meal services. Our brief for in-flight catering was met with a sensible plan for cabin service sequence. I asked The Galley Girls for the main courses in individual containers, with garnishes supplied separately for plating on board. It made a difference to have the crew provisions ready without cluttering the galley work area during preparation.”
The honest answer starts with what you send us: type, seats, number of guests and sectors. Repositioning legs into Manzanillo can be nearly bare, which keeps the bill low, while a full service for passengers raises it. Private jet catering is billed per menu and per tray, like any other order, with no separate airport surcharge here.
Customs and produce are what make an order simple in Granma Province, not a clock. Seafood is bought daily and rice is always on hand, so a late request is not a problem. What helps most is knowing the crew duty time and the length of the ground wait, and last-minute orders are handled day or night.
Customs in Cuba can seize imported fresh food, so we do not suggest carrying it in. The weather adds a second problem: when a window opens late at Manzanillo, a pre-loaded meal ages. Order the final menu once the departure looks firm, and we cook it for that window.
For two services, the packing matters more than the menu. We label each tray by service and by seat, sauces apart, so the flight attendant opens the right one at the right moment. Can you bring food as well? Yes, subject to customs, but it will not be arranged that way.
The charter does not cover meals, so the answer to is catering part of a charter is no: you place a separate order and receive a separate invoice. What changes the order at MUMZ is the length of the turn, because a quick one calls for cold plates and a long one for a hot course.
Tail, pax and diets — a flight attendant takes it from there, day or night.
