Philadelphia International Airport's food delivery robot "gita" has been a hit since joining the OrderAtPHL team in February—even making appearances on late night talk shows. Now the public can get on a first name basis with the robot—literally—by entering PHL Food & Shops’ “Name the gita contest”.   

“gita is the formal name of the unit. We want to give it a name that is fun and reflects the spirit of Philadelphia,” said Megan O’Connell, PHL Food & Shops Marketing and Customer Service Manager.  

To enter the contest, the public should like and follow PHL Food & Shops on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook and send direct messages with name suggestions (family-friendly, please). PHL Food & Shops can be found at @PHLFoodandShops (Twitter), @phlfoodandshops (Instagram) and PHLFoodandShops (Facebook).  

“The PHL Food & Shops team will select four of the best submissions and put those to a final public vote,” said O’Connell. “Our gita should have a name by the end of April.”  

PHL Food & Shops is currently piloting the gita as part of its OrderAtPHL integrated meal delivery service. Passengers and airport employees can order food and merchandise from a variety of PHL concessions by visiting orderatphl.com or using the Grab app from a mobile device and have an AtYourGate team member deliver the items to the passengers’ and employees’ locations at PHL. The gita robot uses visual sensors to pair to and follow the AtYourGate representative through the airport. The units were developed by Piaggio Fast Forward and have been piloted at several other U.S. airports. 

“During the pilot, we are looking at the customers’ experience with gita, reactions from passengers in the terminals to the robot and best practices for when to use the robot for deliveries,” said O’Connell. “We still have some time on the pilot, but so far, the response has been very positive.”