Grab & Fly opens ‘Just Walk Out’-enabled airport store
Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) has a new checkout-free shopping option.
Star Concessions Ltd. has opened a Grab & Fly travel store at DFW, featuring a checkout-free shopping experience based on Amazon’s Just Walk Out platform. The new frictionless store enables customers to take the items they need and leave the store—without having to wait in checkout lines. Product assortment includes cold drinks, snacks, travel accessories, electronics, and souvenirs.
To enter Grab & Fly, customers insert their credit card at the entry gate. Once inside, anything a shopper takes off the shelf is automatically added to their virtual cart, and anything they put back on the shelf comes out of their virtual cart.
After customers have completed their shopping experience and left the store, their credit card will be charged for the items they took. Associates are available in-store to assist customers, answer questions, and re-stock shelves as needed.
Grab & Fly is open at DFW Airport’s Terminal D South, with daily operating hours from 6 a.m. to last flight out (typically 10 p.m. CDT). Headquartered in Dallas, Star Concessions Ltd. currently operates over 45 food, beverage, and retail establishments in DFW International Airport, Dallas Love Field and Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport.
“We are very excited to bring this checkout-free store to DFW, one of the busiest airports in the world, so travelers can get what they need and skip the checkout line,” said Gilbert Aranza, president of Star Concessions Ltd. “We selected Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology because of the fast and frictionless experience it enables, and we look forward to hearing how busy travelers like the experience.”
“Dallas Fort Worth International Airport is one of the busiest airports in the United States, so we’re thrilled to collaborate with Star Concessions to enable a fast and frictionless shopping experience for their guests in Terminal D,” said Dilip Kumar, VP, AWS Applications.
Airport travel stores turn to Amazon frictionless technology
Other airport-based travel stores are also utilizing Just Walk Out and other Amazon frictionless shopping solutions to increase the convenience of and reduce time spent purchasing “on the go” goods by busy travelers.
Hudson, a leading travel retailer with more than 1,000 stores in airports, commuter hubs and tourist destinations across North America, has an agreement with Amazon to use Just Walk Out technology in select travel convenience stores. A new concept called Hudson Nonstop opened in the first quarter of 2021, at Dallas Love Field Airport, with additional roll-outs occurring at other North American airport stores since that time.
Other airport retailers also offer licensed Amazon “Just Walk Out” technology at select stores. Airport convenience store chain Cibo Express Gourmet Markets began rolling out the solution in March 2020, shortly after Amazon made the platform available for other retailers to offer a cashierless shopping experience. And in February 2022, British travel retailer WH Smith began using Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology to provide a checkout-free shopping experience at its first North American store, located in the new Terminal B at LaGuardia Airport in New York.
Hudson also offers Amazon One palm payment technology at its Hudson Nonstop “grab and go” store concept at Nashville International Airport (BNA) and its Dallas Love Field location. Launched in September 2020, Amazon One is a proprietary technology designed to let customers use their unique palm signature to pay or present a loyalty card at a store, as well as perform activities like entering a stadium or badge into work. The solution uses custom-built algorithms and hardware to create a person’s unique palm signature.