Dining on the Dash at DFW? Delivery Service Now Available at C Gates

Time-crunched travelers at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport have a new – fast – way to get something to eat in American Airlines' Terminal C.

At three, easy-to-spot self-service kiosks along Terminal C (at gates C6, C19 and C35) travelers can now order meals from an assortment of restaurants and wait no longer than 20 minutes for a courier to arrive at the kiosk with their food.

The pilot program at DFW is a partnership between mobile-ordering app Grab, which lets travelers order food to be picked up at dining venues in many US and UK airports, and Airport Sherpa, which has been offering gate delivery of meals and retail items at Baltimore-Washington International Airport since 2017.

For now, there is no delivery charge for the gate service at DFW. There are nine participating food venues, operated by various concessionaires, including Bánh Shop, Caribou Coffee/Einstein Bros. Bagels, Chili's, Freshens, Maggiano's Little Italy, Pizza Hut, Shake Shack and TGI Fridays.

A Grab spokesperson said more restaurants are being signed up for the DFW pilot program.

Here's how it works:

Each Grab kiosks has two (wheelchair-accessible) touchscreens with point-to-point encrypted (P2PE) payment devices that allow travelers to browse menus and place orders. Once a purchase is made, a traveler gets a message on their mobile device with information about their order and updates on when the Airport Sherpa runner is scheduled to arrive. (Customers can also order at the kiosk and choose to go pick up their own order.)

Here's a short video that shows how the system works:

Gate delivery of meals is a welcome amenity at DFW because "more than half of our customers are connecting to another flight," said Zenola Campbell, Vice President, Concessions at DFW Airport. "These kiosks will provide a convenient solution for them to order food on the go."

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Campbell says DFW will monitor the pilot program and expand the service to other terminals if the Terminal C effort is popular with customers.

The Grab/Airport Sherpa kiosks are just the latest twist in a growing list of options for travelers who want to grab meals to take on planes or who want to eat within sight of their gates.

Both Grab and HMSHost's Host2Coast app let passengers search for restaurants and grab-n'-go venues at airports, place orders and save time by having meals packed for pick-up from express lines.

In addition to Airport Sherpa, which now offers gate delivery at both BWI and DFW Terminal C, At Your Gate now provides gate delivery of meals at airports in San Diego (SAN), Portland (PDX), Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP), and in some terminals at Newark Liberty (EWR) and New York's LaGuardia (LGA) and JFK airports.

And, of course, there's OTG, which has installed thousands of iPads in gate-hold areas at eight airports -- EWR, LGA, JFK, MSP, Houston Bush Intercontinental (IAH), Philadelphia (PHL), Toronto Pearson (YYZ) and Washington Reagan National (DCA) -- that allow passengers to order food and drinks delivered from nearby restaurants and bars.