Landside Operations Manager
Operational/Incident Management
- Vacancy type: Full-Time Permanent
- Closing date: 25/06/2025
- Salary: £54,813
About the Role
Our mission is simple: Happy customers, travelling safely, on-time. The Landside Operations Manager is responsible for the daily delivery of the full scope of landside operations at Edinburgh Airport, including Surface Access, Car Parking, FastPark, and Plane Parking. This is a high-impact leadership role within Edinburgh Airport Ltd, focused on delivering safe, efficient, and customer-centric operation across all landside services.
The Landside Operations Manager is responsible for ensuring day-to-day operational excellence, compliance and safety, putting the customer first in a 24/7 – 365 environment. The role will involve working collaboratively with X-Aero, HR, Business Analytics and Finance to deliver an agreed operating plan. As we grow, the landside operations manager will be responsible for all aspects of our surface access operation, developing our traffic management and landside capability.
This is a key position for an experienced operational leader who can think clearly under pressure, manage complex operational challenges, and inspire and support teams to perform at their best in a dynamic airport environment. This role is based at Edinburgh Airport, working days with flexibility required to meet business requirements.
About the Recruitment Process
The recruitment process for this role will be comprised of two in person interviews. You will meet with our Senior Operations Manager and key stakeholders from our Operational team for a competency based interview and we will ask you to complete a presentation/task at one of the stages – we will confirm the format on invite to interview. We will also share a more in-depth job description upon invite to interview.
You can find out more about our recruitment process and the types of questions we might ask here.
What you’ll be doing
Operational Performance
- Own landside operational performance, ensuring managers are trained, and empowered to meet or exceed targets, supporting them to use data driven insights to inform decision making.
- Develop and maintain positive, effective relationships with various transport stakeholders including Transport Scotland, Edinburgh Trams, local authorities, and transport operators.
- Analyse operational performance, identify trends and areas for improvement, and promote best practices across the team.
- Regularly review and update Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), and ensure consistent application
- Work closely with the Senior Operations Manager to deliver an efficiency strategy focused on operational improvement and cost savings.
Leadership
- Define and deliver a clear operational strategy aligned to agreed performance metrics, setting clear goals and expectations for the team.
- Manage, coach and develop a team of Duty Managers, ensuring that their teams are managed effectively and all HR policies are followed fairly and consistently
- Encourage a safety first culture, and ensure all operational areas meet EH&S standards, including regular audits and inspections
- Foster a collaborative and inclusive environment, encouraging development and feedback within the team
- Oversight of resourcing within the teams, ensuring staffing levels are adequate to meet demands and collaborate closely with our Recruitment and Workforce Planning teams
Passenger Experience
- Take full ownership of the end-to-end passenger experience across all EASL-operated areas, ensuring service standards are met or exceeded at all times.
- Work with Duty Managers to review the passenger experience daily, resolving any issues promptly and proactively.
- Foster a strong customer service culture, ensuring the service engages with passengers in a friendly, helpful, and professional manner.
Contract Management
- Oversee the contract management of all external service providers, ensuring service levels, compliance, and commercial performance meet agreed standards, while fostering strong working relationships and driving continuous improvement.
What we’re looking for
This is a role for someone who enjoys working in a fast-paced organisation, can process information quickly and make effective, analytical decisions. The ideal candidate will be a strong people leader, self-motivated, target-driven and manage in a positive and engaging manner.
Key skills:
- Strategy. Able to set clear and defined objectives and develop a coherent plan for success across multiple lines of development (e.g. people, process, cost management).
- Decision making. Can take a holistic view, making quick, clear and informed decisions based on the information available, considering all risks and impacts on the whole operation whilst finding the best possible solution to the problem
- Problem Solving: Can continuously improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the operation, is willing to challenge current thinking and execute effectively. When problems arise, identify what can be done immediately and provide a quick and pragmatic solution.
- Communication: A clear, confident, inclusive and enthusiastic communicator with the ability to engage, manage and influence at all levels.
- Leadership: Proven ability to lead in a visible and demanding operational environment. Set the example as an open and inclusive leader and develop leadership capability throughout the team. Be a role model in every aspect, promoting a motivational leadership style and demonstrate great interpersonal skills.
Qualifications and experience:
- The successful candidate must be able to obtain a Counter Terrorist Check, which requires you to have lived in the UK for the last 3 years
- Experience of working in a fast-paced operational environment and achieving great results, understanding and meeting customer requirements
- Experience in managing third party contracts
- A high standard of education, preferably to degree level
- Working knowledge of continuous improvement best practices
- A track record of successful delivery of tangible results over time through personal contribution and engagement of teams
- Experience of utilising data analysis and manipulation to improve operational performance
- High standard of computer literacy including Excel
The following additional items are nice to have but are not essential for the role:
- Knowledge of Airport Operations
- Operational Management experience
- Pension scheme- employer contributions can be up to 7%
- 32 days holiday, based on full time roles, increasing with service
- Annual discretionary bonus
- Supporting your health and wellbeing- private healthcare after 1 years’ service, access to our Employee Assistance Programme and occupational health services
- Free car parking on site and when you go on holiday
- We offer a range of other benefits, find out more here
Why EDI?
We are Edinburgh Airport, where Scotland meets the world. The success of the airport comes down to our people, and you can help us deliver even more big days for our passengers and colleagues. The development of your career is important to us, and we’ll support and encourage this every step of the way. As a business we’re driven by our values – they’re at the core of our culture and everything we do. We’re looking for people who will demonstrate these values day-in, day-out. So if this sounds like you, apply now and get ready for your career to take off.
Building a diverse workforce that is inclusive and accessible to all is a priority for our business. As part of this journey, we are proud to be the first UK airport to be endorsed by WORK180. They only recognise great employers for all women. Find out about our policies on our WORK180 employer page.
As a Disability Confident Leader, we are committed to ensuring applicants with a disability can participate fully in our recruitment process. Please let us know in your application form if you require any adjustments, such as parking arrangements or alternative methods of communication.