Tig Hi,
There are many different ways of doing this!
It would not be a bad thing to get experience in both crewing & Ops. The charter airline I worked for, crewing & Ops were both H24 next to each other & worked hand in hand with each other. Where I work now we do not have a crewing dept, just Ops (as we are simply a UK agent)
It really depends on the individual airline as to how the set up is between Ops & crewing, & how easy it is to start in one & transfer to the other. If you really want to get into Ops I personally would go with crewing first, then when you have the experience try the transfer over to Ops (as crewing dept' usually won't want to let you go this may take time!
)....
To gain experience you could try a handling agent, although the pay is not normally good, it is a good starting point for experience. Ops wise you don't really need to have any fantastic qualifications, just be switched on
You could look into doing the City & Guilds courses in Aviation & Advanced Aviation Studies which covers Ops & Flight Dispatch. If in the future you want to aim at being a Flight Dispatcher you could aim towards doing an FAA Flight Dispatchers course in America (although this is not easy, it is an ATPL course without the flying). I hope I have helped in some way, any further help post me a note....
Brgds MriyaDream
