Owner Steve Cosgrove calls his Employee Store at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport a slice of “avgeek heaven.”
The shop, tucked away in Terminal C, Gate C2, is stocked to the rafters with shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts, hats, beanies, coffee mugs, coasters, aircraft models, and almost every other conceivable form of merchandise, most bearing the licensed insignia of airlines that serve or have served Dallas/Fort Worth. American Airlines, the exclusive operator at Terminal C, tends to predominate, but other carriers, past and present, are mixed in, including Pan Am, TWA, and Braniff, giving some products a decidedly retro flavor.
The store also sells essentials aimed at airport and airline employees, including badgeholders, socks, hosiery, and shoes. The store’s hours of operation – 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., every day, including holidays – gel with workers’ sometimes chaotic schedules, and picking up necessities there has become a ritual for veterans and a rite of passage for trainees…