Gallery-Inside American’s new catering facility at DFW

The 214,000-sq.-ft. building is the largest airline catering kitchen in the country and is more than three times the size of a football field. During peak travel season, American's DFW catering facility prepares nearly 15,000 fresh meals a day at the airline's largest hub. The airline is also deploying a new fleet of more than 100 catering trucks to support its hub operation.
 

An automatic storage and retrieval system whisks dishes, plates and other items around the building on conveyor belts to reduce the time catering teams spend waiting for them.
 

Catering hundreds of aircraft a day involves complex coordination, where timing is every bit as important as taste, because meals, snacks and beverages need to be delivered at just the right moment. American designed its new kitchen from the ground up with technology to help catering teams focus on quality, freshness and speed.
 

A robotic machine loads soft drinks into the drawers inserted into beverage carts. This not only saves time, but ensures the correct beverages are loaded on to each flight. The facility handles close to 200,000 beverage cans a day.
 

During peak travel season, American's DFW catering facility prepares nearly 15,000 fresh meals a day at the airline's largest hub. The airline and its regional partners operated more than 800 daily flights from DFW to more than 240 destinations in 23 different countries this past summer.
 

Advanced washing systems sanitize cutlery, glasses and beverage carts so they can be prepared for another use.
 

American's new catering facility was built with sustainability in mind. The kitchen will soon participate in a unique program that turns organic food waste into compost. As trays and dishes are cleaned, organic food waste is collected by a vendor and distributed to farms and compost facilities. The airline has long recycled cans, paper, bottles and other trash removed from aircraft.