chef

caterer

pastry cook

truck driver

lead hand

Dnata

Typical day begins driving into a dark, dingy car park with water falls flowing from the levels above, smelly, greasy, & leaking pipes. The concrete bunker building has no windows, main entrance is depressing, run down & dated decor. Facilities don’t appear to be maintained, ceiling panels missing, &  asbestos is most likely present.

Catering Operations Coordinator office is a tiny room with no windows & COLD!

Responsibility of the Catering Operations Coordinator is immense, multiple phone calls throughout the day, multiple systems, multi tasking & immense amount of data entry. 

Staff always appear to be stressed, over worked, & over whelmed due to the multiple tasks which must be completed in a very tight timeline. Skill levels of the staff aren’t consistent, there are incompetent staff amongst the team & most likely were hired out of desperation. Whenever the opportunity arises you are thrown under the bus & this is quickly swept under the rug by the incompetent micromanaging management team. Go figure! 

Roster is horrible, horrible! There is no fatigue management practices in place with multi start shifts allocated. The shifts varies from 4am, 5am, 8am, 1pm, 4pm to multiple 9pm night shifts followed by minimal rest days. 

Pay was okay, but not worth the stress & anxiety levels! 

Over all experience wasn’t pleasant, culture & environment very toxic, over whelmed & stressed due the workload. Very unrealistic expectations from the staff considering half the team don’t even have the skills! 

Progression, there really isn’t any if progression is your goal. The management team don’t develop the staff to excel in their role or set you up to be successful. 

If you know how much you’re worth and don’t want to end up in a mental hospital highly recommend you avoid applying.


Needless to say, this place provides good benefits including all-day free meals and good casual payment. However, when it comes down to workplace environment, it is a place for you to practice your mentality and endurance. This is because they do not provide a proper training program. Senoir co-workers are irrational and have no desire to train and provide a junior a good advice. Operating processes are not proper constructed, this means you can be right and can be wrong from different senoir's perspectives and/or emotions. Last but not least, improperly planned growth of the company leads to the lack of operating resources such as shelf trolley and rubbish bin. This lack makes works hard to be properly organized. If the management team is competent to solve the above cons, this company will be a really good place to work with.

They're always understaffed because no one wants to stay long term. You pretty much get accepted without any experience. It has good pay for something that doesn't really require experience (as a catering assistant in the production section) and sometimes you get to choose the dinners. The co-workers made it so much more tolerable, the community is very close and everyone is in agreement about how terrible the management is. They accept more airlines and flights yet they don't hire more people, justifying everything by saying "we did the research" and blaming you for being the "slow" one. It's definitely very past faced but after a while, you get used to it. Higher ups are very insistent on doing things their way and won't listen to any suggestions even if it's more efficient. 

"I've been working in the production section as an assembler for over a week now, but it's been a nightmarish experience. From day one, I've faced scathing criticism and blistering rebukes from leading hands and managers, who seem to take great pleasure in belittling me in front of my colleagues. Despite my best efforts, I'm constantly being yelled at and criticized for not meeting their impossible standards. Meanwhile, senior staff members who have been here for years are treated with kid gloves and get away with subpar performance, while I'm subjected to soul-crushing pressure to produce more. The top-level officers are either oblivious or complicit in this toxic workplace culture, prioritizing profits over people and ignoring the daily struggles of new trainees like me. It's an astonishingly unfair and demoralizing experience that's left me feeling ashamed and helpless

Was Always my dream job to be working at the airport because my love for aviation and travel.  Applying for the job and all the way through to induction and training is full yet exciting. 
Made a lot of friends and learnt so much. Working now at check-in which is great. The only  unfortunate issue is a minority of the management team or supervisors that don’t guide you as well as they need to.

You will get the feeling of the new kid at school and sometimes you will be spoken down to.  Everyone tells you to do things differently so you’d like a ball bouncing from one office to another trying to accomplish the simplest thing. 

All that said, my Airline team have been really great and supportive.  Hours can be sometimes uncomfortable but that’s shift work in a nut shell.

My advice, you need to have thick skin to last in this company . 

First 6 months were a breeze. Lots of responsibilities and management was good. 
Then I noticed how terrible their turnover rate was. Constantly hiring and sacking, every week. 
Many people were fired for stupid reasons. Including me, for simply coming to work an hour early, just like everyone else was or had done, to help out more with a busy part of the day.
The management/office staff, team up and influence each other to dislike other employees. Resulting in a bad reputation that grows rapidly. 
I personally do not recommend working here. Pay is garbage. Especially full time rate. And you’ll be stuck doing the same thing every day. Along with terrible management, with a lot of the “managers” behaving like toddlers most of the time. 
Don’t work here. 

In my Airport customer service check in role I was able to use my previously accumulated airport knowledge and use my native fluency in Mandarin to assist both passengers before me and with other staff
The quality of Star Alliance courses was excellent and working permanent part time was both settling and convenient as I studied various relevant courses to my work and future in Melbourne

Worked for this company for 14 years as a leading hand and supervisor.  Had to do a 3 day course on bullying and harassment. One of the major upper management personnel was getting away with major forms of bullying and harassment and targeted me sacking me 3 weeks before Christmas. Was considered a top leading hand but to him it didn't matter. They need to get more checks and balances with the way they treat their employees especially upper management.

A typical day at work at dnata is busy and exciting! You get to learn a lot about airport operations and how to handle different tasks efficiently. The management is supportive and encourages growth. The workplace culture is inclusive and diverse, which creates a positive and friendly environment. The hardest part of the job can be managing time and prioritizing tasks, but it's also rewarding when you accomplish everything. The most enjoyable part is working with a great team and seeing the impact you make in ensuring smooth airport operations.

Decent job if you're after a high weekly aggregate of hours. Overall poor shift timing with constant alternations between overnight/afternoon shifts that cut into days off.
Pay is low however night penalties are okay, brings up the 22.46 base rate to 28ish.
Overall the staff is decent, quite patient with  your training period. 
Work is fairly distributed and supervisors work as hard as lower staff.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Chef 12 salaries reported	$78,117 per year
Caterer 3 salaries reported	$30.00 per hour
Pastry cook 5 salaries reported	$79,854 per year
Truck driver 14 salaries reported	$78,828 per year
Lead hand 7 salaries reported	$78,258 per year

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