Customer Service

AI-driven self-checkout kiosk greets hungry passengers at Charlotte airport

Passengers traveling through CLT can now grab fresh food to go with self-checkout to give them confidence in a sanitary, contactless experience.

April 23, 2021 by Elliot Maras — Editor, Kiosk Marketplace & Vending Times

You've just made it to the Charlotte Douglas International Airport following traffic delays and gotten through security on Concourse B in record time. Your three-hour flight is finishing up boarding, and you haven't eaten all day.

As you scan the vicinity, you notice a pair of glassfront coolers near a lounge with three words in big letters across the top: "Swipe Grab Go." As you approach the coolers, you see the assortment of salads, wraps, sandwiches and beverages. You swipe the card reader with your credit card, open the glassfront door, grab a salad and a wrap and close the door.

Neil Thompson said customer response to the self-checkout kiosk has been excellent.

In a matter of seconds, you're boarding your flight with dinner in hand.

Airport adds AI-powered self checkout kiosk

The Charlotte Douglas International Airport is one of the first to offer self-checkout food and beverage kiosks powered by artificial intelligence.

In addition to using a credit card, the customer can open the glassfront doors by scanning a QR code with their smartphone. Once the door opens, a camera traces the customer's action; if the customer removes and replaces an item from the shelf, they do not get charged.

Payment is made automatically to complete the shopping experience. The final shopping cart is displayed on the screen and sent to the customer's mobile device.

"You just swipe your credit card or you can use the wallet on your phone to complete the transaction," Neil Thompson, vice president of digital at HMS Host, told Vending Times in a phone interview. "It's very intuitive in terms of guiding the guest through the experience."

Each of the two 30-by-29-by-78-inch coolers has five shelves, each of which can have eight lanes for single-serve packages, for a total of 40 SKUs. The shelves are adjustable and can accommodate larger packages.

As a contract foodservice provider specializing in airports and travel plazas, HMS Host has stayed abreast of self-service innovations, and recommended the "smart" kiosk to the Charlotte airport last year.

The airport welcomed the solution, which is made by Sandstar, a Charlotte-based provider of artificial intelligence and computer vision technology solutions for retailers.

24-hour service

"This type of equipment allows us to offer a 24-hour foodservice. Anywhere people want to grab something and get through really, really quickly," Thompson said. "This kind of technology really is the next step."

Another important benefit the Sandstar solution provides is the ability to meet the airport's sanitation standards, Thompson said. The dynamic vision recognition that captures the items taken from the kiosk also activates the UV light cleaning cycle once the door is closed. The UV light kills 99% of any virus that could potentially be present between customers.

"That gives a lot of confidence to everybody that there's food available," he said.

COIVD accelerates existing change

The dual coolers offer freshly prepared sandwiches, wraps, salads and beverages.

While COVID-19 has accelerated the push to contactless technology for many of HMS Host clients, the interest in utilizing digital experiences to enhance the customer experience has been a focus for the foodservice contractor prior to the pandemic.

"Certainly the pandemic has accelerated the desire for touchless, contactless," Thompson said. "We're always looking for ways to add meaningful digital experiences to our suite of solutions for airports."

Another benefit: no records of transactions are stored by the system.

"From a privacy standpoint, customers can have full confidence there," Thompson said.

"We work with the airport all the time on what brand might work the best for guests, what service style might work the best for guests," he said. "This just fits under all the check boxes of what we were trying to do at the time, which is provide a contactless, touchless solution that can really help enhance the guest experience."

"The customer feedback has been positive," Thompson said.

Fresh food prepared daily

The food is prepared at a facility 10 minutes from the airport and delivered daily to the machine for stocking.

When restocking the machine, the service associate opens the door and replaces the unsold products.

Operators can also open the door by scanning a QR code using a mobile app that can also track the machine's inventory.

HMS Host monitors the sales and inventory in real time.

Thompson expects the solution to remain in place past COVID-19.

"I think this is something that will continue to be part of the future in terms of how we think about being able to provide a contactless 24-hour fresh food solution to travelers," he said. "We're very pleased with the results so far and we look forward to the opportunity to speak with other airports about the opportunity to bring this to their airports as well."

The solution is also scalable.

"You can take this and you can put it into an area where it may not justify building a full store," Thompson said.

"With our current pandemic, consumers are seeking contactless shopping solutions as a way to keep them protected which is why we expected staggering growth of smarter self-checkout systems delivered through our intuitive retail kiosks," Mike Kiser, president of SandStar North America, said in a prepared statement.

"It really provides a great retail experience that you're in complete control of as the customer," Thompson said.

For an update on how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting convenience services, click here.

Photos courtesy of HMS Host.