Southampton Airport
That's a breath of fresh air...
A cafe counter at Southampton Airport's departure lounge that doubles as an air conditioning system.
The case
Fast-expanding Southampton Airport needed to redevelop its departure lounge to accommodate up to 2.5 million passengers a year and enhance the comfort and experience of passengers during busy periods.
It's a popular airport; in February (for the second time in three years) Southampton was voted the 'Top UK Airport' in a travel survey carried out among readers of Wanderlust Magazine.
Architects decided that the counter should house the departure lounge's air conditioning unit, which would be a novel way to conceal it and displace the air from a central position.
The solution
Simon Trundle, regional director for contract caterer Aramark, had worked with Carford's Cathy Wilcox in the past and called her in to discuss the contract for the new airside Aura cafe bar.
Working alongside BAA and its architects and main contractor Warings, Carford designed and project-managed the installation of the servery, beer chilling - in fact everything to do with the catering operation: signage, walkie-talkies, customer notification system (which involves a pager loaned to each customer which notifies them when their snack meals are ready for collection after transport from the main kitchen) and preparation room with fridges and microwave.
 |
The airport's beer cellar is landside so draught beer is pumped 40 metres, needing special cooling within the cellar, along the beer pipes and at point-of-sale. |
And with the servery's inbuilt air-conditioning system (a first for Carford), storage space within the servery was at a premium, although two heated and two ambient sections were included.
| Project management meant Carford worked closely with four other companies on the unique counter alone: architects, servery builder, consultant on air conditioning and the company to supply and install the air conditioning. |
|
The result
The new departure lounge provides a superb new catering facility and a bigger, more relaxed seating area away from the boarding gates - and it successfully handles three times as many people as it did two years ago.
Its Aura cafe bar was voted the most improved catering outlet throughout the BAA estate and won its staff a £1,000 cash voucher. It serves Starbucks coffee, Delice de France pastries, Grab'n'Go sandwiches, baguettes and panini - and is also a licensed bar. In its first year of opening it is expected to handle 31,000 panini, 38,000 cafe lattes and 56,000 filter coffees.
www.intergage.co.uk | Web Design in Dorset
