Flight 108 and Steak au Poivre at Gate 42

August 21, 2008 | Uncategorized

It was a few years ago that I learned my lesson.

I was flying JetBlue quite a bit in its early years and, unlike many of its competitors at that time, it never served sandwiches or meals. This was before most other airlines embarked on their starvation flights.

Running late one morning I boarded at Ft. Lauderdale without having eaten and was tortured all the way to New York by the smell of pizza brought aboard by a couple two rows in front of me. Ever since then I’ve always remembered to eat before boarding, or to bring my own snack aboard.

But back then — this wasn’t long after 9/11 — I could rush to my gate, quickly grabbing a sandwich or something else on the run. Not anymore. Now the food lines can get so long you need to build in added time.

You can be certain that somebody’s making a bundle at the airport these days, and it’s not on the aircraft-side of the gate. Unless you’re willing to stop on the way to the airport and buy a sandwich — and how many of us have time for that — you don’t have much of a choice except to buy something disguised as a sandwich at the airport.

Let’s face it. People now arrive at the airport up to two hours prior to a flight and often have to endure delays. And even under the best of circumstances — despite how much you read or work on your laptop — sitting in any airline terminal is just plain boring. And what do many people do when they’re bored? If you need a hint, it’s a three-letter word that starts with “e”, ends with “t” and has another vowel in the middle.

Airports and airlines are well aware of how much people eat while awaiting their flights and it’s not an insignificant amount, the reason many airports have become full to overflowing with food vendors dishing out their high-caloric offerings. If you ever get an anorexic traveler buckling in alongside you in today’s frequent-traveler world, enter your flight number the next time you buy a lottery ticket.

Airport food today has gone from bland sandwich/salad stands, pizza places and sports bars to Starbucks, Chili’s, and bland sandwich/salad stands with names of celebrity chefs over the refrigerated display cases.

And lest we forget the health factor, airport food purveyors have also become aware that many people want to eat healthier whether they’re at home or waiting to board a plane. And by satisfying both needs — or at least claiming they have — they’ve identified a niche market, and one that turns a nice little profit at that.

This is why you now find such companies as Ciao Gourmet Markets, an American version of a Milan restaurant, which has 150+ locations in Europe, in several U.S. airports. It offers prepackaged and more-healthy foods for travelers, although I think its “Tunarama” — pasta with tuna, carrots and peppers in a yogurt sauce — could probably use a name change to make it sound like it wasn’t concocted in a bait store or car wash.

But at long last, there seems there may be a light at the end of the tunnel for the traveling gourmet. JetBlue, the same airline that changed the way we fly, is now getting ready to change the way we eat, at least at the airport. Or, to be more specific, at least at New York’s JFK.

You may have heard that JetBlue will be opening a new terminal at JFK October 1. Its much ballyhooed Terminal 5 — attached to the swooping, old TWA terminal designed by Eero Saarinen and designated as a landmark — is expected to be one of the best designed airline terminals not only from a security, baggage and convenience perspective, but also from a gustatory one.

In a bold move — at least for an airline — JetBlue has retained a number of respected New York chefs as consultants (and, thank God for major miracles, not the marquee names from Hollywood and the TV food shows) to design new restaurants for its new digs. When finished it will be home to several upscale restaurants including a rustic Italian trattoria, a sushi and Asian restaurant (which was very popular in its old terminal), a brasserie, the first-ever tapas restaurant in a U.S. airport and a Mexican restaurant.

In addition to these “chef-driven restaurants,” as The New York Times refers to them, the terminal will also include a steakhouse, a French bakery-cafe, a sports grill and a food hall with burgers, Asian food, pizza and kosher choices.

All in all, according to OTG Management, the company that will be overseeing JetBlue’s food and beverage operations at JFK, there will be nine full-serve restaurants, bars and cafes; a gourmet food hall with eight quick-serve eateries; gourmet markets for grab-and-go; three coffee bars; and six bars/lounges.

Unlike the restaurants back in Manhattan upon which they were styled, these JFK restaurants won’t accept reservations and seating will remain pretty much airport-style — no linens and dining at communal tables and counters. Some will have open kitchens.

The whole thing is a risk for JetBlue, of course, but it is something it is willing to gamble on given the numbers.

Look at it this way: you have a hungry, captive audience of 20 million travelers passing though the terminal every year (65% of which buy food according to the airline’s estimate), knowing that only snack food of chips, nuts, etc. lies on the other side of the gate. If you can get them to spend $15 - 35 for decent restaurant food instead of $4.50 for fast food, it will go far in generating quite a bit of additional income to help offset rising costs for fuel and other necessities. Somehow, it just doesn’t sound like that big of a risk anymore.

And if you just don’t feel like going into another restaurant — or are worried about your flight departing while you’re halfway through dessert — they’ve planned for that as well: there will be tables with touch-screens in the gate area where you can order food to be delivered to you there.

Jim Ferri