The American airport food operator OTG Management and the Toronto Pearson International Airport operator have partnered up to bring passengers ready to board a unique local dining experience with access to 2,500 new iPads.
The iPads will be installed throughout the gate areas of Terminal 1 and Terminal 3, allowing passengers to order food and have it delivered right to their seat, check information about flight departure and destination in real time, and browse the Internet or check their email.
“Where you wait for your flight typically, we’re transforming that entire experience into a gate-lounge atmosphere,” said Sean Aziz, a spokesman for OTG Management. The iPads will be installed on the table top of each seat, and every seat will also have access to an electrical charging station which includes USB ports and receptacles for charging different gadgets.
The iPads are tethered, but can be used without any time limit.
“We believe this to be the largest deployment of iPads for free public use other than the Apple stores,” said Aziz.
Besides Pearson, OTG is deploying another 4,500 iPads to LaGuardia and Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport as well. The company is making an investment of over $10 million for the project.
A pilot program is already in operation at LaGuardia’s Terminal D in New York, where 300 iPads are installed. According to Aziz, the pilot has been a “tremendous success”.
The iPads will be located at 13 new dining locations at Pearson, including eight locations in Terminal 1 and five locations in Terminal 3, all at the gates.
The Dining Experience
The iPad experience was part of an initiative to reinvent the dining experience at the Pearson Airport. An executive chef proposed the idea to bring in iPads to a representative at the Pearson, and feeling the need to bring customers a new food experience, the deal to bring in the gadgets was made.
The partnership with OTG also involves bringing in chef-driven restaurants, utilizing local talent and making the restaurant experience at Pearson a locally-focused venture.
“We were very supportive of the idea that it should be local chefs, it should be local food whenever possible ... a couple of the restaurants will be dealing with local farmers as well,” said Scott Armstrong, a spokesman for the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA), the operator of Pearson.
Many of the fruits and vegetables will be brought from local markets, and one restaurant will use products from a local cattle farm.
“We do a lot of passenger research each year, and we’ve heard from people in the last couple of years especially that they’re looking for names that they know, in terms of restaurants but also their chefs, and that they’re expecting a high quality of food,” said Armstrong.
Some of the prominent names from the Toronto local scene include Mark McEwan who heads the upscale North 44 restaurant, and Guy Rubino, the executive chef for the Asian themed Ame restaurant. Five other prominent chefs, which include a brewer and a master sommelier, will aim to bring out the highlights of some of Toronto’s most celebrated restaurants.
According to Armstrong, this new initiative will also give international travellers a “good sampling of what the Toronto dine scene has to offer,” especially if they don’t have an opportunity to visit downtown Toronto.
The first station is scheduled to open as early as November and December this year, and the last of the stations will be completed in a year from now.
“It’s an additional element for people. I think it will surprise some people,” said Armstrong.
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