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First Class For All
By Abbie Westra, FARE Magazine - June / July 2009
Redefining airport eats at JetBlue's T5
As airlines are chastised for cutting on-flight amenities such as blankets and beverages, JetBlue is focusing on the airport experience. Its T5 terminal opened last October at New York's JFK International Airport with the lofty hopes that travelers would actually want to arrive early for their flight.
After nearly three years of construction, the 635,000-square-foot terminal houses 26 gates throughout three concourses, with a 55,000-square-foot central retail and concession area. T5 can accommodate up to 20 million customers annually and 250 daily departures.
In 2007, amidst construction, JetBlue sent out an RFP for T5's foodservice operations. OTG Management, a firm that has worked with JetBlue at JFK for five years, stepped up with a bid.
"Fortunately, we were the lucky winners," says Rick Blatstein, chairman and CEO of OTG Management, which has offices in both Philadelphia and T5 itself. JetBlue awarded the contract to OTG Management in late February 2008. "We were under a very dramatic time schedule, and we built the entire program out in 115 days," says Blatstein, whose 12-year-old company works exclusively in airports, including Boston's Logan International, LaGuardia, Ronald Reagan Washington National, Washington Dulles and Philadelphia.
T5's 22 food and beverage outlets cost OTG more than $45 million to build out—compared to the $743 million price tag the entire terminal required. That $45 million generated nine full-service restaurants, three coffeeshops, six bars/lounges, a food court, gourmet market and the most unique concept in the terminal: "re:vive."
In front of about half of the gates in T5 are what the company calls re:vive clusters, where travelers can relax, charge their electronics, and order food from a touch-screen monitor. The order is paid for with the swipe of a credit card, and OTG staffers deliver the food in the time estimated on the monitor.
Re:vive menu options include "small plates" such as hummus and flatbread, marinated olives and feta cheese and an artisanal cheese platter, and sandwiches such as tuna with black-olive pesto and roasted vegetables with goat cheese. Breakfast items include an egg and cheese panino, or a toasted bagel with smoked salmon, chive cream cheese and red onion. Food is delivered ready to eat in the terminal or packaged to go, and the average check is $8.
The roster of full-service restaurants features an array of cuisines, from modern Italian at Aeronuova to fresh seafood at Deep Blue Sushi, from tapas at Piquillo to steakhouse fare at 5ive Steak.
In the food court, travelers can choose from fry-centric spot Pommes Frites, Lucy's Asian Kitchen or Fresco Pasta, as well as familiar franchises such as Dunkin' Donuts and Jamba Juice.
T5's retail food spots further buck airport stereotypes by offering a bounty of organic, vegan, kosher, sugar-free and gluten-free products; some items are even sourced locally.
T5's design follows the hip styling of the airline itself—something Blatstein paid careful attention to when creating the foodservice operations with New York design firm Icrave. In fact, he says, it's the design that gets customers to see it his way, that "we don't operate airport restaurants; we operate restaurants that happen to be in airports."
"Whether our restaurants are in Terminal 5 or in the Meatpacking District, it's still a restaurant," he says.
So far, Blatstein has been very pleased with T5's reception by travelers. "As you know, we're in a recession, so it really has pleasantly surprised us that we have passed all of our projections early on, and the customer has taken to this program very, very well.
"We're fulfilling a demand that was not addressed properly before."
Now that T5 is up and running, OTG is looking to revolutionize more airports around the country. While nothing is officially on the books, Blatstein is anticipating opening new operations in Los Angeles and other markets in the next 18 to 20 months.