A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;in 2007, Curt came to&nbsp;the publication&nbsp;from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;sister publication&nbsp;Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s&nbsp; Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with&nbsp;Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.

Senior Editor

Curt Epstein

Jet Aviation was presented with the Private and Business Aviation Food Safety Award from Davinci Inflight Training Institute on Wednesday afternoon at NBAA-BACE 2022. The company&nbsp;was honored for the successful completion of Davinci’s recently introduced Private and Business Aviation Food Safety Program by all of its more than 100 flight attendants, as well as mandating it for all future hires.

 


“It’s a big deal that they went to the trouble to provide that training to all of their flight attendants,” said Davinci founding partner Paula Kraft.

 


Davinci quietly launched the aviation-specific food safety course in 2020&nbsp;in response to the many calls it received on food handling and safety during the Covid pandemic. Before now, its promotion was limited mainly to word-of-mouth.

 


The online course&nbsp;covers topics such as how to prevent cross-contamination, understanding the flow of cold food from the source to the airplane, and how to dispose of leftovers. It takes approximately four hours and ends with a comprehensive exam that must be passed to receive credit.

 


“The program was designed to pay attention to the problems that they have in the air to meet food safety standards,” Kraft told AIN. “It’s different from a standard food safety course that is designed for ground restaurants or hotels, whereas on the aircraft they don’t have the same storage or reheating capabilities.”

 


“Ours is actually based on the job of the flight attendant or flight crewmembers, as well as FBO members on how to keep that food safe onboard your aircraft,” said Davinci COO John Detloff, adding there are currently no food safety standards in aviation, placing the burden on operators. “That’s why we actually developed this course to actually have a set of standards for the flight crewmembers on the food safety aspects." The program certification is good for two years, after which the employee must be recertified to stay abreast of the latest safety guidelines.

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