Airport Experience® News - Customer Service Issue 2024

noting that YVR President and CEO Tamara Vrooman has been a long-standing advocate for PAFN, and “the partnership is thanks to her vision and leadership.” When Vrooman initially shared the concept, PAFN’s co-founders Wendy and Sergio Cocchia embraced it, and together they began planning what would eventually become Paper Planes Café. “The café “allows PAFN to provide paid (living wage) employment to our neurodiverse community,” says Wendy Lisogar-Cocchia. “This training program gives our trainees a place to learn, thrive, hone and utilize skills that will give them the tools needed for them to find long-term paid employment opportunities.” SRQ’s New Effort The success of community-forward concessions concepts has led other airports to consider similar business models in their future planning. Sarasota–Bradenton International Airport (SRQ), currently in the final leg of a $200-million dollar modernization and expansion project, plans to open Rise Up Café, an airport location of a Sarasota-based coffee shop that employs community members with intellectual disabilities. The SRQ outpost, which will be operated by SSP America , is slated to open in early 2025. “Many of the team members at Rise Up Café will be Floridians with intellectual and developmental disabilities,” says Paul Brown, senior director of airport brands and concepts for SSP America. “It’s important to SSP America to ensure this population is able to join the workforce. “Too often, this group is overlooked and denied opportunities for gainful employment,” he adds. “With Rise Up Café, we have a brand offering not only one of the most sought-after menu items in airports – coffee – but also an important mission that meets SRQ and Sarasota’s strong commitment to diversity and inclusion.” Rise Up Café and its founders, Beaver and Erin Shriver, “are leaders in ending the epidemic of unemployment among people with intellectual and developmental disabilities,” adds Brown. “Rise Up, in partnership with other local organizations, has classrooms and staff

Community-forward concessions help to galvanize the airport community due to their visibility. – Nathalie Roemer, COO of aviation consulting firm Optimas

dedicated to training this population for employment in businesses all over the community.” Concepts like Rise Up and other community-forward concessions “really help to galvanize the airport community due to their visibility,” says Nathalie Roemer, COO of aviation consulting firm Optimas. “Since concession operations serve both travelers, employees and depending on the location, sometimes also to non-travelers from the community, there is a good opportunity for workers to interact with a variety of customers to share their stories,” she adds. Roemer cites examples like YVR’s Indigenous Market and Edmonton International Airport (YEG)’s Indigenous Interpretive & Retail Centre, which showcase products from indigenous vendors as “great for giving non-profit organizations a commercial venue to showcase their products to an audience that they may otherwise not have exposure to due to costs and a lack of opportunity.” These programs are also “effective community outreach programs by bringing people who rely on the support of these organizations, as well as their friends and relatives, to the airport to experience the offers and to demonstrate that the airport is a place for everyone, whether you’re traveling or not,” adds Roemer. “Furthermore, these programs enable the airport to ‘walk the talk’ when it comes to being inclusive by providing job opportunities for everyone.” The recent rise of community-forward concessions has also inspired both airports and concessionaires to consider expanding the model. “We have partnered with local, community based non-profit organizations at every airport we operate,”

says Areas USA’s Schneider, citing the company’s plans to open a ThroughGood Bistro and Bar at William P. Hobby Airport (HOU) in partnership with Houston-based homelessness, hunger relief and social support organization Bread of Life . In addition to contributing royalties to the organization through the ThroughGood Bistro, Areas will also sell ThroughGood-branded items throughout several of HOU’s grab-and-go concepts. And at DFW, GTMS RS Harris LLC has bid on the airport’s latest concessions RFP with hopes to put a second location of The Bridge in Terminal E, says GTMS’s Brown. “The criteria for bids now includes a big community component in terms of the evaluation,” he adds, which he believes is a direct result of The Bridge’s success. GTMS also has its eye on creating similar models at Philadelphia International Airport (PHL), says Brown, noting that finding a solution for homelessness is an issue especially close to home for many airports. “What’s interesting for me as a researcher [is] that there are a lot of homeless people living at airports, and it’s something that’s really not talked about but is very prevalent and very pervasive in large airports,” he says, adding that he believes concessions models like The Bridge Travel Essentials Store can be the first step to assisting unhoused locals from living at the airport to finding gainful employment from the airport. “Ultimately, you want to do something where you think you’re going to have an impact on somebody,” says Woody of the social-entrepreneurship model. “It’s not just a balm for your emotions but it’s a next step and a solution for that person you momentarily have care for.”

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AX NEWS OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2024