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.

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