Mostly former schedulers in MEM ops...but it helps when you have scheduling issues because they know their scheduling stuff and legalities inside out...

I honestly think it would work best having the base manager be the former flight ops person, and the assistant base manager being the former inflight person...no offense to FAs, but one would think the issues involved with boarding an aircraft and serving beverages would be much less complicated and involved than the intricacies of maintenance/dispatch/load control/FAA regs/and other issues that come into play on the flight ops side...

I've seen flight ops base managers in all bases assist pilots with extremely complicated scheduling issues that I won't even attempt to comprehend (things like repo flights, extensions, junior assignments, ferry flights, airport reserve, and duty times can get insanely complex)...

I wouldn't wanna be the duty daddy if inflight takes over