POLAND. Flemingo-owned Baltona Duty Free is planning to open three of its 14 recently awarded stores at Warsaw Chopin Airport this month, according to the retailer’s CEO Piotr Kazimierski.
“We will open the first outlets soon, in the end of this month. These will be temporary stores,” Kazimierski said at a press conference, as reported by local news agency PAP. “The next stores will be opened gradually, several outlets per month.”
Of the first three stores, one will be in located in the airport’s non-Schengen area, with two in the Schengen area. By the end of 2018, Baltona Duty Free aims to open a total of 13 stores, with the final outlet to follow next year. In total, the investments are estimated at about PLN30 million (€7 million).
Earlier this year, Baltona Duty Free signed 14 lease agreements with Polish Airports State Enterprise (PPL), under which the company would take over 14 outlets across 2,819sq m.
The agreements, valued at PLN710 million (€166 million) over a period of nine years, draw a line under the company’s dispute with PPL after the airport company unilaterally cancelled the company’s retail space lease deals in 2012 before launching an overhaul of one of the terminals.
The 14 outlets have been run until now by Lagardère Travel Retail. The Paris-based travel retailer has said it will vigorously “defend its interests” having said that the contract to Baltona Duty Free was the result of a process by PPL that was neither “fair nor transparent,” as reported.
In an 18 July statement, PPL claimed that “the appearance of real competition has immediately produced significant benefits for PPL”.
PPL noted: “Following the completion of the entire process of returning the outlets, LTR will remain a lessee of 49% of the retail surface, Baltona will lease about 46% of this surface, Keraniss will have about 3%, and Kruk about 2% which will stimulate competition.”
Before the award of the contract to Baltona, Lagardère Travel Retail managed about 90% of the airport’s retail space.
