Airport Experience® News - Food & Beverage Issue 2025

ONE ON ONE

BELING: What are the primary goals of the North Star initiative? HUININK: We’re building experiences powered by a T4 State of Mind – a wink to the New York state of mind [catchphrase], where pride, community and innovation unite. We are really focusing on elevating the human experience because we want to distinguish ourselves a little bit more. Everybody is investing in infrastructure. But in the end, if you work in this industry, you know that people make the difference. So we thought that by focusing on human interaction and the human experience [of traveling through T4], we can really drive a guiding light for our employees that ultimately deliver that service. We are currently enhancing our commercial offering, elevating our service culture throughout the terminal and upgrading the terminal ambiance with elements of design. The North Star [initiative] aligns with our customer experience standards, and it aligns with our own company values and vision, and we really want to bring that community together to shape that future customer experience and mission. We started mapping our position in relation to the world-class definition, because a lot of people talk about world class, but what does it mean? One of the things that we started with is analyzing the Airport Service Quality (ASQ) scores. We benchmark ourselves, first against the other [JFK] terminals but also [against] other airports in the New York area and leading airports globally with the highest ASQ scores. We then established the baseline [of standards] through a human-centric lens, dedicated to passengers and the employees to really identify what makes us unique as a terminal operator. As part of that initial framework, we’ve identified over 15 key initiatives that we are rolling out this year across passenger and employee experience, [as well as] commercial and terminal [upgrades]. What I think is different or

unique compared to what we’ve seen [elsewhere] is that we really do that in collaboration with our communities. When we started the process, we brought our partners together – the airlines, the stakeholders, governmental agencies and the employees – and collectively, we selected those key initiatives. BELING: What’s the timeline and budget for the initiative? HUININK: So I would say [from a timeline perspective] that the work on service, culture, initiatives and innovation never stops. We fund this through our regular budgets, but it’s also part of our [JFK] redevelopment program. All those infrastructure investments are actually part of the redevelopment budget. But I would say this has become a part of our regular business, and it should be, because if we work on all these initiatives, we’ll make the best experience greater, and we’ll have happy customers and happy airlines, which is important to us. BELING: Who are some of the design and concessions partners you’re working with on the North Star initiative?

HUININK: We’ve always had a strong representation of locally driven dining experiences with T4, but I think we’ve accelerated that now. We are in the middle of a complete overhaul of our retail food and beverage [concepts]. We’ve announced a collaboration with HMSHost for 10 new New York-based food and beverage concepts. What is unique and exciting in the partnership we have with HMSHost and the Port Authority is that we have been able to let them form a joint venture with seven local and diverse ACDBE certified businesses, which were selected after an extensive community outreach. Our current partner SSP America also has strong ACDBE-partnerships. Above: A $1.5 billion redevelopment of JFK T4 expanded capacity, while the North Start program defines a strategic vision for the T4 experience, one that involves enhanced service culture, innovation and collaboration among employees, a commercial program that showcases New York City’s five boroughs and an arts program.

42

AX NEWS JULY/AUGUST 2025