Rudy’s Inflight Catering is celebrating the one-year anniversary of its White Plains, N.Y. kitchen with an expansion of the facilities. According to Joe Celentano, who with his brother John owns and manages Rudy’s, “We are about to add a 900-sq-ft refrigerator to supplement the operation.” The facility, on the grounds of Westchester County Airport, has also extended its hours and is now serving clients 24/7/365.

Flight Explorer is offering a 5.0c version of its Flight Explorer Professional aircraft situation display. The new version delivers extended integration capabilities with third-party and customer in-house systems and other enhancements. Version 5.0c will interface with Java and non-Windows-based client systems and has been expanded to include two-way, interactive route building and evaluation. It can be fully integrated with flight-planning systems and customer applications and compared with known weather patterns and FAA delays. The route can then be modified and sent back to the originating system to be filed, “lowering fuel cost and saving the customer time.”

AirFuel International, a member of the Air Routing Group, is getting a new name–Air Routing Fuel. A spokeswoman at the Houston-based company said the move was an effort to more closely identify the fuel procurement management company with the Air Routing Group parent company. Nothing else has changed, she said. Air Routing Fuel manages aviation jet fuel procurement for 2,500 corporate aircraft worldwide and offers total fuel management services and cost/price analysis.

Also, Air Routing is expanding its travel department to keep pace with what it described as “the growing demand to handle all travel arrangements for the company’s flight crew client base.” The Houston-based company established its own in-house travel desk four years ago, and according to Air Routing v-p Tim Maystrik, the company booked more than 20,000 room nights last year for flight crew clients. Much of the demand, said travel manager Kaaren Scoggins, is the result of a “tremendous growth” in travel to the Far East, particularly to China.

Risk management and crisis response is now part of Arinc Direct services, along with an enhanced flight following program. Last month, the Annapolis, Md.-based company formed an alliance with iJET Intelligent Risk Systems, a provider of risk-management and crisis response services, to offer detailed destination intelligence to business jet operators as an integrated part of the Arinc Direct suite of flight services. It allows Arinc Direct flight-planning customers real-time access to iJET’s global intelligence database. Included in the database is information on current risks and situations in the destination city or country, from weather conditions and the political climate to terrorist threats and vaccination requirements. Arinc Direct provides the integrated service to subscribers at no additional cost. Also last month, Arinc Direct began offering its subscribers a premium flight-following service tailored to the needs of individual operators and flight planners. It allows Arinc flight coordinators to take a proactive approach to flight planning, aircraft tracking and pilot communications, working directly with the operator’s dispatcher or flight department.

The next Schedulers & Dispatchers Conference is scheduled for January 25 to 27 in San Antonio, and four new sessions are on the agenda. Two are variations of the international review sessions that resemble NBAA’s International Operators Conference and are for advanced schedulers and dispatchers. There will also be new sessions on software technology for flight department integration and how to buy fuel on the road. For additional information on the conference, contact Jo Damato at jdamato@nbaa.org, or access the NBAA Web site at www.nbaa.org.

Shell Canada Products’ aviation business is funding a new $5,000 scholarship for Canadian schedulers and dispatchers. The scholarship is being administered by the NBAA Scholarship Committee, and the winning applicant will be announced at the NBAA Schedulers & Dispatchers Conference in San Antonio next month. The scholarship program is open only to Canadian citizens.

Schedulers & Dispatchers Comings and Goings

• Wendi Gavigan, a licensed dispatcher and president/manager of flight operations for Citigroup Corporate Aviation in White Plains, N.Y., has earned certified aviation manager status.

• Jaime DeJean, who used the scholarship she won earlier this year to obtain a FlightSafety dispatcher certificate, successfully completed the course and has joined the dispatch team at Cox Enterprises in Atlanta.

• At Oakland County Airport in Pontiac, Mich., Dawn Murphy was named operations manager for Tradewinds Aviation.

• TWC Aviation has opened a branch office at John Wayne Airport in Irvine, Calif., and named Scott Cutshall base manager.

• Tri-State Area Dispatchers, serving Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, will meet December 6 in Philadelphia. Contact: Trish Jones, Colleen Corp., (215) 365-2550, patricia.l.jones@gsk.com or Sharon Martin, Aramark, (215) 238-3038, smartin955@att.net.

• The Midwest Schedulers and Dispatchers Group will meet next on May 5 in Chicago. Highlights will include a lakefront dinner cruise. Details will be made available on the group’s Web site at www.mwsdg.org.

• The Nevada Regional S/D Group’s first meeting, in October, sponsored by Signature Flight Support Las Vegas, Western Petroleum, Mercury Air Centers Los Angeles and NBAA, drew more than 40 attendees. A second meeting is being scheduled for the spring. Contact: Dion Glenn at Sky River Management, dglenn@sky-river.com.