Airport Concessions about to be fined

greg1016 said:
There seems to be disparity in my pandemic experience. In terminal 4 at Idlewild, my most recent place of employment, half of the food vendors are closed, open irregular hours, or extremely short-staffed and mismanaged. Quick food options include McDonalds, Shake Shack, or a premade sandwich from Hudson News. It is not uncommon to spend half of 60 minute break waiting in line at one of these places. Meanwhile I fly to PIT frequently, where at any given time 60% of the gates are empty, yet every time I have been there all the shops and food vendors are open and there are no lines anywhere.
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Isn't PIT a little bit different though? Like, wasn't it designed to be both a major shopping node AND an airport at the same time?
 
killbilly said:
Isn't PIT a little bit different though? Like, wasn't it designed to be both a major shopping node AND an airport at the same time?
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LOL they tried that. They also tried it at Terminal 4. Turns out people don't like to pay to park to go to a mall. I did overhear a bar manager at PIT explaining to a customer that the rent was based on their sales though. They are currently undergoing a much needed renovation to make the airport terminal smaller and more efficient. The more efficient part is definitely needed, but they are removing something like 25% of the gates, so forget about luring another airline to potentially make it a hub again.
 
Murdoughnut said:
Yeah, that's always an interesting tug of war with concessionaires. The airport wants Chipotle. The concessionaire wants "HMS Host Burrito" to avoid paying franchise fees. What you usually end up with is a mix.

One of the big changes in airport concessions about 5-7 years ago was a move to a multiple concessionaire model. In the past, one single concessionaire usually ran all the shops/restaurants at an airport. Seeing competition as an avenue for improved returns and a better product, airports have started bidding out packages (ex. one coffee shop, one casual restaurant, one retail store) instead of the whole thing. Great idea, except that a single master concessionaire is traditionally better at managing staffing resources.

Also, and not to give a chub to the esteemed member posting due north of me, but airport boards have become increasingly focused on handing out concessions contracts to diverse business enterprises. While I'm personally a believer in the spirit of doing this, from a purely business standpoint it has saddled some airports with concessions operators who are new to airports or lack the volume of experience necessary to manage an airport concessions operation. They were vulnerable enterprises before the pandemic, but have since been swallowed by it. Not all - many are fantastic, but anytime you choose an operator based on anything other than depth of experience and historical performance in airports, you run into these issues.
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Yeah, I see the other side of this. The company I work for has a few brands contracted through HMS Host at a large southwestern US airport. We've got one guy on site who oversees the operations of the restaurants, but HMS handles everything else. We also provide a bit of assistance with menu creation and supply chain sourcing, but they've got everything else in terms of ops. Our end of it is a monthly licensing fee that's based on a percentage of sales.
 
greg1016 said:
LOL they tried that. They also tried it at Terminal 4. Turns out people don't like to pay to park to go to a mall. I did overhear a bar manager at PIT explaining to a customer that the rent was based on their sales though. They are currently undergoing a much needed renovation to make the airport terminal smaller and more efficient. The more efficient part is definitely needed, but they are removing something like 25% of the gates, so forget about luring another airline to potentially make it a hub again.
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At TUS, the restaurant between the terminals in the ticketing area would validate parking up to 4 hours or so for people who came to eat there and parked in short term.
 
Soku39 said:
You guys ever just try not eating? It's great for weigh loss, it's what I do and comes highly reccomended.
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This sadly is how I do it an awful lot. Other than snacking on crap from Hudson news I’ll typically just have on full meal a day outside the airport. It can be rough, but it sure beats the “find a meal” anxiety experienced every 4 or five hours while at work.
 
Derg said:
I have no idea what the answer is.

Well, no should I! I fly airplanes, mostly OK.

But I couldn’t imagine getting up in the morning, driving down to the airport for a near minimum wage job dealing with the traveling public and flight crews… NOPE!
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its should be an honor to work at the BOARZ HEAD sandwich place….ha!
 
Derg said:
I have no idea what the answer is.

Well, no should I! I fly airplanes, mostly OK.

But I couldn’t imagine getting up in the morning, driving down to the airport for a near minimum wage job dealing with the traveling public and flight crews… NOPE!
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Long been a problem at KDEN, surprise, surprise no one wants to drive to Kansas in a snowstorm to work for crap wages. The local janitors union recently went on strike and made some solid gains with a new contract, so good on them.
 
bike21 said:
Long been a problem at KDEN, surprise, surprise no one wants to drive to Kansas in a snowstorm to work for crap wages. The local janitors union recently went on strike and made some solid gains with a new contract, so good on them.
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Especially in Denver. "I can't smoke weed, will make minimum wage AND have to drive to the airport daily? Honeybunches of NOPE!"
 
CoffeeIcePapers said:
Not sure why anyone would want to work at an airport restaurant when they could work at the equivalent place outside of the airport, especially fast food.
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Don't know about other airports, but SFO pays about $3-5/hr more than the off-airport equivalents and also provides free healthcare even to part-time employees. SFO, at least, sets minimum wage guidelines that differ from the state, city, and county to ensure airport jobs pay more and are worth people's time. NOT doing that, for all the reasons in this thread, would be stupid...especially with the labor shortage.

Plus, having a SIDA makes it cheaper and faster for other airport companies to hire you. It isn't uncommon for people with no airline experience to get hired at the stores or food joints in SFO and then immediately add having an SFO SIDA to their resume and getting a job with good benefits not long after. A lot of people who I bought food from in my SkyWest days used to end up there or at UA.

Then again, I'm basing all this on pre-COVID when they didn't just hire anyone with a pulse for jobs with flight bennies. LOL
 
Fixtur said:
I can't wait to do a quick turn at FRG! Atlantic has the best free snacks and their coffee machine is cleaned at least quarterly!

Woe be unto him who didn't pack a lunch to eat on a repo leg.
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Oh, but there’s now a self serve kiosk there. No more free snacks, but it’ll accept Apple Pay.
 
Minuteman said:
Maybe I'm a little biased because a nearby airport is advising travelers to arrive three hours ahead of their departure time. It is literally faster to drive to the hub they would be connecting to anyway. "Show up early and enjoy the amenities, spend some of that walkin' around money" you say? The vast majority of departures (connections to a hub) leave between 6AM and 9AM and they're telling people to get to there by 4AM to get sieved through the TSA's •-fest.
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You're talking about Austin aren't ya?

N826AW said:
Not to mention the two Chick Fil-A locations they built that are not open on Sundays.
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You are free to chose your hours of operations on any street corner, shopping center, mall however if you choose to occupy an airport you should be required to be open 7 days a week. Is this just my opinion, what say all of you?
 
Sculprit said:
You are free to chose your hours of operations on any street corner, shopping center, mall however if you choose to occupy an airport you should be required to be open 7 days a week. Is this just my opinion, what say all of you?
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Agreed. I am all for Chic fil-a deciding as a company to be closed on Sunday. Would I love to eat there sometimes when it is closed? Sure. But I respect their right as a private company to determine when they are open.

That said, operate at an airport and you should be required to be open from breakfast through dinner every day of the year.
 
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SrFnFly227 said:
Agreed. I am all for Chic fil-a deciding as a company to be closed on Sunday. Would I love to eat there sometimes when it is closed? Sure. But I respect their right as a private company to determine when they are open.

That said, operate at an airport and you should be required to be open from breakfast through dinner every day of the year.
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They have a big presence in the Atlanta Falcons stadium. Head scratcher there.
 
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