Heading to your local airport on a holiday? Get ready to wait in line. This past Labor Day weekend, TSA screened a record 10.4 million travelers—including nearly three million on Friday alone.
But record crowds don’t automatically translate to record airport sales. Every minute a passenger spends stuck in a security or a concession line is a minute not spent shopping or dining—and the airport feels the loss. Commercial revenue, a vital part of airport finances, was 17% lower in 2023 than in 2019, according to Airports Council International. Many travelers simply skip the long lines, and those missed opportunities for selling snacks, souvenirs, and SIM cards add up.
The queue that kills the sale
Why the jam? Fixed checkout counters become chokepoints during peak travel periods. Travelers do the math—coffee versus missing their flight—and keep walking to the gate. Airport vendors often don’t have enough staff to accommodate unpredictable crowds. Spikes are also unpredictable between gates, lounges, stores, and pop-ups, making it difficult for managers to rebalance staff quickly enough to smooth the queue. The result is frayed nerves, abandoned purchases, and lost sales.
Bring checkout to the people
Innovative airports are discovering a neat solution: meet customers where they are. Equip floor associates with mobile devices that accept tap-to-pay anywhere in the terminal, from concourse seating areas to walkways to areas where spillover crowds congregate outside full airline lounges. That way, travelers can pay without waiting in line at all.
Add order-status and menu screens so waits feel shorter and less stressful. Queue psychology—yes, that’s a thing—backs this up: “Occupied” and “explained” waits feel shorter than idle, uncertain ones, and studies show digital signage can cut perceived wait times by nearly 35%.
A coffee moment on the concourse
Imagine a coffee stand twenty minutes before a bunch of departures from nearby gates. One barista makes the drinks while two associates roam the seating areas with mobile checkout devices. The big board above the counter reads “Now Making: Orders 54-60.” Lines form organically, walk-aways drop, and late add-ons rise, all without adding a single fixed register or opening a new lane.
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport shows how this works in the real world. The airport’s OrderSEA program launched with mobile ordering across multiple concessions and included optional gate delivery. During its soft launch, travelers placed more than 1,200 orders, with 500 deliveries to gates, helping people skip crowded lines and airport businesses make more money.
Ultimately, what travelers notice—even during those packed holiday weekends—is shorter lines, clearer information, and the convenience of getting what they need without risking a missed flight. Meanwhile, operators get a steadier capture of discretionary spend when it counts most—and airports see their commercial revenue climb.
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