I am the Director of Operations for a long-established scheduled Air Carrier, and have been involved in certification and FAA Ops Specs development on several occasions. In start-ups it is common for consultants to be used early on for the manual development, SAI's, etc etc - and these people are often not in the airline's office, but do work out of their own offices - and during this period, the 5 managers you speak of are rarely in the offices, as there is little for them to do at this stage - they'll be busy enough soon, as training will be scheduled, and a myriad of other tasks done on the Schedule of Events worked out with the FAA after the consultants' work is accepted by the FSDO Certification Team that has been assigned.
