Whether it’s marking the start of a journey or passing time during a connection, the airport bar remains a fixture of travel life. In many ways, it’s not all that different from the broader food and beverage industry. From the rise of low- and no-ABV options to the growing interest in global wines and lesser-known varietals, the same trends are shaping menus across the board.
But unlike traditional bars and restaurants, airport operators serve guests with a very different mindset. “When people are making the decision to consume an adult beverage in a traditional capacity, it’s often around an occasion, a meeting or celebration or social gathering,” says Tyler Pitman, senior vice president of concept development, brand partnerships, and adult beverage for North America at Avolta, a global travel retail and F&B company. “In the airport space, at the end of the day, they’re just here to travel. So how people perceive what they’re looking to drink, how they make their purchasing decision—it’s about the time they have.”
That time factor shapes every part of the experience, from menu design to operations. Travelers aren’t planning a leisurely night out. They’re fitting a drink into a 45-minute layover or grabbing something before boarding. The balance, Pitman says, is between giving them speed and giving them something worth remembering.
Physical limitations also play a central role. “The space we have behind our bars, the space that we have on the back bar, the infrastructure that supports the number of draft lines—it’s very different from the traditional capacity,” Pitman adds. “Traditional restaurants may have 16 tequila SKUs. They may have every age statement from four different suppliers. We don’t have the luxury of space, so we have to be really sharp about what products we’re offering and how we’re engineering our portfolio.”
That same theme runs through Brittany McCarthy’s approach at Paradies Lagardère, where she serves as national beverage manager. With more than 90 airports and hundreds of outlets to consider, her team builds flexibility into the program itself.
“Some of our bars have five seats,” McCarthy says. “There’s no way to be able to have enough room in there for everything. So, while you always want to make sure you’re hitting some of the trends, you also have to make sure you’re still getting those staples in there.”
Menus are tiered to fit different footprints, ensuring travelers can find a mix of crowd-pleasers and trending flavors even in compact spaces. But, she notes, convenience can’t come at the expense of hospitality.
Airports are often under-served when it comes to food and beverage options, especially amid constant construction and renovation projects. Guests can spend significant time just waiting to place an order, which makes speed of service essential.
That’s one reason RTDs are growing in this space, and McCarthy expects them to become an even bigger part of the mix. At the same time, she’s wary of making things so quick and automated that they lose the human connection that defines a good bar experience. Even if travelers don’t have time to linger, she believes there’s still room for genuine hospitality.
“One thing I don’t love to see in this industry is the service part going away, because that’s such a huge thing behind the bar,” McCarthy says. “I don’t want it all to move to QR codes and RTD. I get excited when I go into a bar and the server comes over and tells me what the special is. Guests deserve and expect the same thing in the airport. So, as much as technology is awesome, I’d rather see it in the back-of-house versus front-of-house.”
Some emerging consumer trends could actually help strengthen that service element. McCarthy points to ChatGPT as one example, noting that people are using AI to learn about spirits, get pairing recommendations, and explore new categories. “It’s great because it does help educate people and help them make decisions, and it doesn’t have to hurt the service and the hospitality. At the end of the day, I’d still take a recommendation from a live person rather than AI.”
Airport bars are also finding creative ways to deliver curated, premium experiences that meet travelers where they are.
This summer, Avolta expanded its Connoisseur’s Collection, which began as a high-end retail program in duty-free stores and has now crossed over into the company’s food and beverage operations.
The Connoisseur’s Collection features a lineup of premium spirits—from The Balvenie 21 and Belvedere 10 to Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin and El Tesoro Extra Añejo Tequila—alongside more than 50 private-label bourbon barrels from Jefferson’s and Maker’s Mark. Beginning this summer, they’re available exclusively to travelers dining at dozens of restaurants across 20 airports.
In October, Avolta went a step further with the launch of a first-of-its-kind concept inside one of its duty-free stores at JFK Airport: the Blinded Tiger.
“It’s a prohibition-era speakeasy,” Pitman says. “It has our Connoisseurs Collection spirits, but it also has a tremendous complement of other spirits that really creates that respite and that really cool, fun experiential element and component. We have mixologists behind the bar that are asking about what flavor profiles you like, just like when you walk into a high-end cocktail bar at any streetside location.”
The menu doesn’t call out brands. Instead, it’s organized around flavor profiles, encouraging guests to discover new spirits they may not have encountered before. “The beautiful thing about that is we also have those bottles for sale. So, you’re introduced to a new product, you’re getting this higher-end experience, and then you can walk over and actually purchase a bottle and bring it with you,” Pitman adds.
Avolta also launched a mocktail program earlier this year that focuses on using refined ingredients already stocked behind the bar for cocktails—upgrading the quality of non-alcoholic options while keeping them consistent with the rest of the beverage program. Pitman says the offering has resonated strongly with travelers.
“It’s almost the two opposite sides of the equation, and it all comes down to crafting and creating that experience,” Pitman says. “We need to create the same experience that so many of the top industry leading restaurant groups and bars are doing. It’s not just somewhere that they can stop to make a purchasing decision. It’s how we can create an experience for them to drive that check average.”
McCarthy traces the growing appetite for premium, elevated beverage experiences back to the pandemic. She says consumers became more educated about their favorite spirits during that time, which raised expectations across the board—especially around quality and storytelling.
“Travelers now expect the same caliber of wine and cocktails and even beer that they would find in the city that they’re going to be in,” she says, noting that the local connection in particular is an increasingly important factor. “It’s basically a demand for airports themselves in the RFPs, how much local needs to be involved now.”
As one example, she points to Hattie B’s at Nashville International Airport—one of the city’s most recognizable hot chicken brands and a key player in bringing the local dish to national attention. “I’ve never been to Nashville, but yet I had to fly through it like 20 times,” McCarthy says. “It’s nice to go through the airport and try something that matches up to what you can find street side. I think that’s something we have to do in beverage as well—try to tie everything back to something local, using the spirits that we have and thinking about who is traveling to that location or through that location when we create the cocktail.”
She hopes that over time, airport locations can become destinations in their own right—places travelers look forward to revisiting. “The airport is your first hello and last goodbye to any city,” McCarthy says, “so you want to make it memorable.”
