RFK Jr And Sean Duffy Lecture Travelers About Junk Snacks — Then Do Pull-Ups And Miss The Real Issue With Concessions

by Gary Leff

Health and Human Services Secretary RFK, Jr. and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy got together at DC’s National Airport to complain about airport food. Just a couple of weeks ago Duffy wanted airlines to stop serving cookies and pretzels and now he’s moved on to airports.

And then they had a pull up competition.

If you believe Olivia Nuzzi, RFK, Jr.’s pull ups here are probably Pharma-fueled. Sean Duffy’s daughter went ahead and smokes her dad’s performance.

I’d point out that Kennedy’s own health practices when traveling are questionable, at best. Flying American Airlines from Portland to Dallas he famously walked down the first class aisle to the lavatory and back barefoot.

He’s also been known to add methylene blue to his drink on American. That’s used as a stain for medical diagnostic procedures, coloring tissues or fluids to make them more visible during lymph node mapping or leak detection.

At lower doses, some studies suggest medical benefits – for treating neurodegenerative disorders, psychiatric conditions, and as an “anti-aging” protocol – but those are largely ‘pre-clinical’ to put it… generously. In higher doses, methylene blue can be neurotoxic and may interfere with mitochondrial function. And homeboy is pumping the gas.

The most common side effect of methylene blue is that you’ll pee blue. It can also turn skin blue, and cause headaches and dizziness. When combined with serotonergic medications, such as an SSRI, it can cause excess serotonin which can be life-threatening.

Normally I don’t love politicians scolding the choices people make. Here the problem isn’t the critique, it’s that they don’t understand why airport food is bad in the first place. And since airports are generally government-owned in the U.S. (in contrast to much of the world!) it’s reasonable for government leaders to critique their performance.

An airport restaurant is likely to be bad because:

  • Restaurants have to bring everything in through security they can’t do just in time delivery of food. There are limits on when things can be brought in, they can’t generally bring supplies down the concourse at peak travel times. Government is a major constraint here.

  • They can’t work with the best vendors There are often rules about which companies can bring food through security. Broaden vendor selection and make it easier to source quality ingredients.

  • Space is limited so you can’t do much storage. In fact Tortas Frontera at Chicago O’Hare has a separate prep kitchen that customers can’t see, with ingredients run from that kitchen out to concourse locations. But it’s not easy to store food, and fresh items aren’t ideal unless they have sufficient daily turnover.

  • Electric cook tops The airport may not permit gas ovens, so everything has to get re-created using electric.

  • Knives chained to the wall Security constrains your chefs, their knives frequently have to be tethered to a wall to prevent being taken (and inventoried every day).

  • Employees are hard to get they need to pass security checks, and that takes time, so hiring on the spot is difficult. You often get worse employees that can pass a background check but have few less cumbersome options that don’t involve commuting to the airport. You aren’t going to attract the best chefs.

  • Lowest common denominator cooking Passengers usually choose a restaurant because it is there, they do not go to the airport because of the restaurant (Tortas Frontera is an exception which does influence some passengers’ choice of connection). People need to be served quickly, and tastes vary. The space has to be used to serve as many people as possible as quickly as possible, you even see brands that do not serve breakfast out of the airport offering breakfast items (Asian restaurants serving eggs or breakfast tacos). Rents are high so you need high volume as well.

  • Despite high cost and hassle you can’t charge more many airports have street pricing rules that cap how much more items can cost in the airport (perhaps exceeding off-airport pricing by no more than 10%).

At the end of the day HMSHost, Delaware North, and OTG deliver a garbage product to a lot of people. It keeps people fed but there’s little to look forward to. Making concessions great again would start with understanding the constraints they deliver under, as well as the need for quick service to a wide range of customers, while delivering what passengers actually want to eat.

Better yet, move away from the model of giant airports-as-malls that you force passengers to walk through. Return to a model where air travel is about getting somewhere quickly. Limit the need to eat at the airport! Make it possible for people to bring their own food (liquid rules, like peanut butter being a liquid). And make it easier to offer low-cost, non-stop service between smaller aircraft. Electric short takeoff and landing aircraft can’t come quickly enough, and regulators should work to accelerate rather than delay.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Anything RFK Jr. says about health is worth as much as his professional expertise in the field.

    Nothing.

  5. MIA used to have a good local Cuban sit-down restaurant on Concourse D. Alas, it is no more as a fast food chain outbid them. There is nothing but fast food dregs now. I just went through there Saturday and had a horrendously bad $7 empanada. It was baked instead of fried and then left to dwell in a heat cabinet. Even with the restrictions, there are ways to have palatable foods if someone actually desired to try. Of couse, that will never happen.

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