A few months back, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) joined the list of airports offering mobile food ordering. The OrderSEA program works with the Grab and At Your Gate programs, offering pick-up and gate delivery options from more than 16 airport food outlets.
As a bonus, some travelers who order gate delivery find the At Your Gate delivery person accompanied by a Gita-branded robot like the one at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) named Nom Nom.
Now that it has been on site a while, SEA wants the Gita robot to be part of the permanen team. So they’re asking the public to help choose a name.
Have any ideas?
Share your creative robot names! 🤖 With a few months under its tires, our OrderSEA food delivery robot wants its own special SEA identity. So it’s time for a new name and we need your help. Learn how to submit a name idea and read our naming guidelines → https://t.co/pN1tcUvs08pic.twitter.com/uOAdguu0ef
Called Zoom Zone and located in Terminal B between Gates 24 and 25, the 600-square foot space was created with support from Zoom (Zoom Video Communications Inc.) and has an aviation theme.
Features of the Zoom Zone include a Pin Screen, a Bird Climber, a Zoom Plane, and a Kinectic Butterfly. There’s also an Alphabet Airplane that invites kids to open airplane window shades and discover objects representing destinations.
Zoom Zone is officially OPEN! 🥳 The lovely folks of @Zoom, @PurpleMuseum and @HenselPhelps made this aviation-themed play space possible, and they joined us today for a joyous ribbon-cutting ceremony alongside City Councilmember @RaulPeralez.
— Mineta San Jose Int’l Airport – SJC (@FlySJC) October 28, 2021
Nature Photos at IND Airport
Camouflaged Spider by Ronda Hamm
Indianapolis International Airport (IND) is hosting a new photography exhibition titled Indiana, Naturally through December 2021 in both the Ticketing Hall and in cases in Concourses A and B. The exhibition is part of a larger, ongoing cultural collaboration between the Indianapolis Airport Authority and the Arts Council of Indianapolis. Here are a few of the images. See more here.
Blue Sky Coreopsis by Jeanette Jeanette JaskulaZalman Wainhaus, Somewhere Silent
The detector dogs are specially trained by the Global Forensic and Justice Center (GFJC) at Florida International University (FIU) and will be on duty at an employee security checkpoint.
The two dogs in the pilot program at MIA – Cobra (a Belgian Malinois) and One Betta (a Dutch Shepherd) – have been trained to alert to the scent of COVID-19.
How do they do that? According to a statement from MIA, the virus causes metabolic changes in a person that result in the production of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The VOCs are excreted by a person’s breath and sweat, producing a scent that trained dogs can detect.
During this test, which MIA says is the first at a US airport, if a dog indicates someone is carrying the odor of the virus, that person will be directed to get a rapid COVID test.
Robot Food Delivery at SEA Airport
More ways to get your food at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport
Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) has joined the growing list of airports offering a mobile food ordering service.
OrderSEA works with the Grab and At Your Gate programs to offer pick-up and gate delivery options from 16 airport food outlets, with more on the way.
There is a tipping option available in the app and a small fee for delivery. And while you may not order alcoholic drinks for delivery, you may order from any participating post-security food outlet.
So if you are at the A Gates and you’d like something from the newly-opened Tundra Taqueria in the N Satellite, go ahead and order it.
As a bonus, some travelers who order gate delivery will find the At Your Gate delivery person accompanied by this very cute Gita robot.
At Your Gate has robots helping to deliver food at several other airports, including Los Angeles International (LAX), where they have named the robot NomNom.
We definitely have a trend. Or a new way of doing things at airports.
Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport is the latest airport to offer a service that allows passengers to order meals from airport vendors and have it delivered to them wherever they are in the airport, in about 15 minutes.
Schiphol is working with food-delivery company Deliveroo and HMSHost International on a pilot program for deliveries in Piers (or concourses) D and E, and in the Mercure Hotel in Departure Lounge 3, and so far the pilot is a big success.
“The reactions from the passengers have been very positive,” Schiphol spokesman Paul Weber told me via email, “Passengers are smiling and waving to our deliverers, taking pictures of them and saying how innovative & quirky the service is. Most of them are very surprised by the existence of such a service, calling Schiphol “The airport of the future.”
For now, the meals available are prepared at Kebaya and The Market, The Grill and The Oven, which are located in Schiphol’s Street Food Market and are delivered by scooter, for a delivery charge of €2.50 (about $3) – but free delivery is being offered through March.
Schiphol isn’t the first airport to offer gate delivery. Airport Sherpa offers gate delivery of food and merchandise at Baltimore-Washington International Airport. At Your Gate recently began offering gate delivery at San Diego International Airport. Both companies plan expansions to other airports.
And, as part of an Airport Innovation Challenge, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, a start-up called Fetchy Fox received a $15,000 prize to develop a delivery program for food and retail at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and Washington’s Dulles Airport.
You order take-out meals delivered to your home or office, so why not get a meal – or some merchandise – delivered to you while you’re sitting at your airport gate?
That’s the idea behind the app-powered services landing in airports.
Airport Sherpa started doing this last July at Baltimore-Washington International Airport and late last month San Diego International became the second airport in the country where passsengers and airport workers can use an app to order food, drink or merchandise for sale in the airport delivered to them wherever they are in the airport.
At Your Gate did a soft launch of its service in San Diego at the end of January with the company’s three founders joining two employees in making the initial in-airport deliveries to flight attendants, airline employees working gates and ticket counters, ramp break rooms and to a few passengers who caught wind of the program.
The service seemed popular among airport workers right away, with plenty of orders coming in from employee break rooms on Super Bowl Sunday.
Many flight crews with short turn-around times have already ordered food delivered to them at the gates, while at least one airline has set up an account with At Your Gate so they can order food for passengers in the first-class cabin in case the ground catering service doesn’t have time to restock a departing flight.
Another possible application for the app: delivering food to “through” passengers on Southwest Airlines flights who don’t have time on the short connections to get off the plane to buy a snack.
What does it cost?
At Your Gate is currently charging airport and airline employees a $2.99 delivery charge. Passengers in the airport will pay a $6.99 delivery charge when the service officially opens to them next month and there’s discussion of offering unlimited deliveries for a monthly subscription cost.
Sound like a good idea? Let me know what you think.
My “At the Airport” column for USA TODAY this month is about an airport amenity many travelers have been wishing for:
An app-powered service debuting this week at Baltimore/Washington International Airport (BWI) — and a similar one set to roll out at San Diego International Airport (SAN) in August — allows passengers to order food, drinks and products that are for sale anywhere inside the airport and have the items delivered to them at the gate.
If gate delivery catches on, it could be a game-changer for the passenger experience and a big boost for the bottom line at airports.
Solving the ‘gate hugger’ problem
The developers of Airport Sherpa (now at BWI) and At Your Gate (soon at SAN) have research showing that American fliers are verified “gate huggers”: Once through the airport security checkpoint, a majority of travelers head straight for their gate, grab a seat in the hold area or nearby and stay put.
It doesn’t matter if their flight is leaving in an hour — or three.
For travelers, gate-hugging can be a problem because passengers who don’t stray from their gates miss out on the upgraded dining and shopping options now offered at many airports. Gate-hugging also means airport food and retail outlets miss out on potential sales. And it is rents and fees generated from those sales that make up an increasing percentage of the operating budgets at airports.
Bringing mobile carts stocked with snacks, sodas, magazines and other items into gate areas is one solution HMSHost has tried in an effort to serve gate-huggers in airports in Honolulu, Maui, Chicago (O’Hare) and Memphis.
Another strategy, first introduced in 2009 at JetBlue’s JFK Terminal 5 and now available in almost a dozen OTG-managed airport terminals in North America, is iPad-enhanced seating areas in gate hold areas where passengers can order food, drinks and products from nearby restaurants and shops.
But in an age in which people use their mobile phones to get pretty much anything delivered to their doorstep, being able to order something from the other side of the terminal, or from a restaurant or shop in a completely different terminal, is a welcome “Why hasn’t this already happened?” next step.
Sit down. Order up.
Airport Sherpa has partnered with airport retail and food concession operator Airmall to introduce on-demand gate-delivery service at BWI this week. The company plans to expand the service to other airports around the country in short order.
The service “will enhance the passenger experience and give travelers access to hundreds of stores across terminals,” said Patrick DellaValle, CEO of Airport Sherpa.
For passengers, it will mean “even more choices, more convenience and more ways to experience the numerous local, regional and national offerings here at BWI Marshall,” said Brett Kelly, vice president of Airmall Maryland. “Now someone traveling out of the D Concourse at BWI can order sushi from the A Concourse, and someone on the B Concourse can get a burger from the D Concourse, whereas before they did not have access between those concourses to go get it themselves,” Kelly said.
Gate-delivery service not only expands the reach of the potential passenger spend for airport vendors, “It can save a sale that might not have otherwise happened,” Kelly added.
The cost of convenience
The Airport Sherpa app is free to download, but there is a gate-delivery fee of $3.99 to $7.99, depending on how far the delivery person, or Sherpa, has to go to make a delivery in the airport.
Deliveries made by At Your Gate, rolling out in August at San Diego International Airport, will initially have a flat $6.99 delivery fee.
Airport Sherpa reps say tipping the delivery person is currently “not expected or accepted,” but tipping may eventually be offered via the app “to ensure that all transactions are cashless.”
At Your Gate plans to have a tipping option built into its app.
Both services promise to keep delivery time to a minimum.
Airport Sherpa says it will calculate delivery time for each order based on preparation time from the store and the time it will take the Sherpa to walk from the store to the delivery location. “We also have controls in place to prevent a customer from placing an order that would arrive very close to or after boarding time has begun,” DellaValle said.
At Your Gate plans to give travelers a 10-minute delivery window.
Will travelers bite?
Convenience will outweigh worries about delivery fees for many business travelers.
“I have spent more than my share of time running around airports looking for things I need during a business trip. I can’t imagine anyone who wouldn’t love that service,” said Joel Horn, former president of Pacific Coast Canola.
“On a tight connection I would like this service, especially for a high-test shot of caffeine or a book,” said Rich McClear, a media adviser based in Sitka, Alaska. “And if I could get a quirky souvenir gift that is emblematic of the area, that would be cool.”
But some travelers don’t see a need for the service.
“I like to get up and walk around the airport, since I’ll be sitting for an entire flight,” said Jen Billock Young, a journalist based in Trevor, Wis. “I’m too cheap,” said Adam Woog, a writer and teacher from Seattle.
Not just a win for passengers
For the San Diego International Airport gate-delivery service, At Your Gate is partnering with Grab, a mobile-ordering app that currently lets travelers preorder food for pickup at 150 concessions in 18 airports. The team plans to offer gate delivery in other airports as well.
The At Your Gate project has the seal of approval from SAN’s passenger experience-oriented Innovation Lab and “the hope is that the service will provide convenience to passengers, flight crews and employees working at the airport and extend the reach of the individual concession beyond their front door,” said Rick Beliotti, SAN’s director of innovation and small business development.
“Gate delivery is a logical extension of the on-the-demand economy that up to now just hasn’t existed in airports,” said David Henninger, At Your Gate president/COO/CMO. “Traveling is really hard. I want this to be the bright spot in the day.”
