Airport Experience® News - Food & Beverage Issue 2024

“They saw it and they realized the need,” Yeagley says. “So, the airport was more than just a business opportunity for us. It was really advertising the capability to other venues and how it could be applied in other locations.” PIT Driving Tech Overhaul The buy-in at the top has spurred some incredible innovation at Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT), where Cole Wolfson, director of xBridge, reports directly to Christina Cassotis, the airport’s CEO. Wolfson ran a hardware-based tech accelerator before joining the airport and says when he arrived, he found fertile ground for companies to test new products. “An airport is like a small city. There’s just about every industry that you can think of operating on its campus,” he says. “So, it’s kind of like a one-stop shop for being able to test different technologies, different markets, within one area. It’s being underutilized, I think, globally.” Since Wolfson arrived, PIT has set up a test bed for early-stage technologies, not just for the home airport, but potentially for the global aviation industry, potentially beyond.

“It’s for the industry at large,” he says, adding that he’s gone out to the national tech startup community, through his connections with venture capitalists, accelerators and universities, and thrown open the doors to those companies using the airport to test their products and services. The idea is for the inventors and PIT to test the product. The inventor gets to test in a real operating environment. PIT, other airports and airlines get to “kick the tires” on different technologies to determine whether they’re applicable in aviation or not. If there is an aviation market, the company may get an early chance to partner with someone and it could lead to public-private partnerships involving – or not – the airport. “That becomes a very complicated relationship very quickly, with airports,” Wolfson acknowledges. He says he approaches each situation with neutrality. “If I can make sure that [the parties] know each other and what capabilities each side has, and what the opportunities could be, then I’ve help form something that is a value.” XBridge has done about 20 projects over the last couple years. One makes a consumer product that looks like a lava lamp but is filled with algae that removes carbon dioxide and expels oxygen at the equivalent

Above: FuelRod now has 600 kiosks spread across major airports and amusement parks. The company started in an innovation lab at San Diego International Airport.

rate of 50 houseplants. Testing at the airport, that company is learning whether the product has commercial application, how it might install the product, how to clean it, how people interact with it and how to measure its work. “From our perspective, we say, ‘Is there a benefit to this?’” Wolfson says. “ Do we see it from either our operational side or customer experience side? What do people think of it? And what would be the application of this in the airport environment?” Another company testing at PIT has a portable mass spectrometer that takes air samples and checks them for bio agents and other substances in the air. “It can compare the signature of what it captures versus an essentially infinite database of potential substances,” he says, alluding to the potential use the Transportation Security Administration might have for such a product.

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AX NEWS JUNE 2024