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Can you describe a typical "day in the life" of someone working in the finance department for an airline?

I love math and working with numbers, so I'm wondering what kinds of jobs there are at an airline in finance. What exactly do those people do on a daily basis? This question was posted by a CareerVillage administrator on behalf of the students of CareerVillage. #human-resources #aviation #airline-industry

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brad’s Answer

I am not working in finance department directly. But I did get some exposure to finance through my MBA education and work experience in a strategy consulting company. Finance department has very highly transferrable skills across industries. I would say a finance job in airline industry would be very similar to an equivalent finance job in other industries.


Shared services function:
Nowadays, many companies is managing Finance, HR, IT, etc. as shared services functions to achieve cost optimization. Think of there are multiple Business Units within the same company, e.g. BU1, BU2, BU3. Finance, HR and other shared service functions are centralized to achieve scale so that companies would save cost. So a centralized finance department will be serving all 3 BUs. These shared service functions are the most common areas where companies are outsourcing today as well. E.g. IT center in India, HR admin function in Latin America.


Finance department:
There are many roles in Finance department. Typically, under finance department, there is accounting and finance. Within finance, there is treasury, FP&A, and other sub-functions as well. I will speak to FP&A where I got the most exposure on. FP&A = Financial Planning & Analysis. This group deals a lot with financial data; typically highly analytical role. For examples, at the end of each fiscal period, this group is responsible for the forecasting and planning for the next fiscal period. This group also receives requests from CFO and other business leaders to perform financial analysis for their particular request.
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Sarah’s Answer

I work in a finance department but on the payroll side. Having a finance background allows you to have many traits that can be valuable to any company. Most finance departments include accounts payable and receivable, accounting, payroll, controller, and the chief of finance. I would imagine an airline company would have the same sort of setup in their finance department. They look for people with specialized backgrounds in each of the areas that they have in their department. I would suggest you determine what you have the most interest in and concentrate on that area. I love the payroll part which is why i have been in my payroll career for 15 years. I have a Bachelors in Management so that it will allow me to go across many areas of the Finance Department.
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