Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) is the busiest airport in the United States, home to Delta Air Lines and its largest catering facility in North America. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Delta Air Lines is the world’s largest airline by revenue and one of the world’s oldest airlines. The SkyTeam airline alliance founder and its subsidiaries operate over 5,400 flights daily. Delta Air Lines has nine hubs in the United States, of which Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) is the largest.
Coming out of the COVID-19 flight disruptions, Delta Air Lines made several changes to its catering services. It changed its catering from Gate Gourmet to the French catering company Newrest, providing all of its catering for all flights departing Atlanta. Another component in Delta choosing Newrest was the French company’s ethical choice of only using recyclable materials for its food packaging.
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Meal orders
The Newrest kitchen receives meal orders from Delta 24 hours before flights depart, making timing the critical component of the operation. According to Newrest,
“Our culinary experts based at our Inflight kitchens around our network are skilled to create customized meals adapted to meet the high quality standards of our customers. Every day, our production units develop and execute recipes for the most prestigious airlines as well as traditional low-cost companies who have a more simplified catering service on-board.”
Photo: Jaromir Chalabala | Shutterstock
The food offerings on Delta Air Line flights depend upon the following:
- Flight length
- The class in which you are traveling
- Destinations involved
Before being able to handle any of the food, employees must first suit up and go through a hand and shoe wash before heading into the kitchen. In the kitchen, chefs must prepare and cook around 40 meal components simultaneously.
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Pre-ordering is most important for passengers with special dietary requirements, as it ensures that the airline will be able to provide them with appropriate sustenance in a timely manner. However, even as a passenger without any food allergies, I find that pre-ordering has a myriad of inflight benefits.
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Atlanta Airport’s cooking facility uses robots alongside humans
The $54 million, 120,000 square foot facility at Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) provided around 3,200 meals and flight boxes daily. The kitchen at the Newrest Atlanta facility is home to the most modern commercial kitchen fryers and ovens available in the marketplace.
Photo: Delta Air Lines
According to Newrest,
“The facility was designed by the group’s internal construction department with a wealth of experience designing and constructing in-flight kitchens around the world. The state-of-the-art kitchen was designed with a priority on food safety. The kitchen’s innovative design allows for the team to effortlessly cater 150 with room to grow to 350 flights.”
Newrest uses robotic assembly lines and digitalized information at the Atlanta Airport catering facility to improve productivity and streamline operations to help 1,100 employees prepare meals daily. Using a robot allows Newrest to assemble 750 meal trays an hour. Once ready, the meal trays are placed in catering carts to be delivered to the aircraft. Truck meal deliveries start at 04:00 and end at 21:30 seven days a week.
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About Newrest
- Buy-on-Board and Duty Free concessions
- Supply management and commercial back office
- Menu card and catalogue design
- Crew commercial and hotel training
- Equipment (marketing and design)
- Entertainment (Airfi®…)
Founded as Catair in 1996, the Toulouse, France-headquartered catering company, provides food services to airlines, railways, and freeway rest stops. Operating in 54 countries around the world, Newrest has over 36,000 employees.
Newrest provides in-flight catering to many of the world’s leading airlines from its state-of-the-art facilities. Whether based on religious, cultural, medical, or health reasons, Newrest nutritionists and chefs can create delicious meals to suit all passenger’s needs.
At the same time, Newrest focuses on meeting the airline’s timetables by ensuring that all meals are delivered to aircraft speedily. Newrest also respects International and local regulations regarding ramp handling and security procedures. The company also provides its services to welcome lounges at airports around the world. Customers are offered customized services based on their needs. According to Newrest,
“Newrest manages welcome lounges for airline companies and airports. As part of this service, we are able to manage all aspects of the lounge: from lounge concept, layout and design to welcoming travelers, as well as providing passengers ‘À la carte’ cooking at the lounge, provisioning and serving all types of food and beverage with or without dedicated personal, equipment supply, cleaning and maintenance. In summary: a tailor made solution for our customers’ needs!”
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