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The new Berlin Brandenburg Airport Willy Brandt will open on 3 June (Photo: Berlin Airports) |
GERMANY. Berlin Brandenburg Airport Willy Brandt will house a rich, diverse commercial offer with a strong Sense of Place when it opens in June, according to airport authority Berlin Airports. The company said it expects average spends on retail and food & beverage to surge forward at the new facility, compared to the existing airports at Tegel and Schoenefeld.
Director of Non-Aviation Management Norbert Minhorst told The Moodie Report: “We expect passengers to spend on average twice as much as they do at Berlin’s airports today.”
The new airport houses 150 commercial outlets – including 39 food & beverage concessions and 20 service units – and at its heart is a 9,000sq m “˜Market Place’.
Around 80% of the tenancies are located airside, many of them in this Market Place, which is directly after security. “That’s very different from Tegel in particular,” said Minhorst, “where most of our commercial activities are landside.”
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A 9,000sq m retail plaza, or Market Place, will be a central feature (Photo: Bjorn Rolle/Berlin Airports) |
The key feature of the Market Place will be a 1,800sq m walk-through duty paid outlet, operated by Gebr Heinemann – and this store will be one of the highlights of the airside arena, predicted Minhorst.
“This is a first for Berlin in a very large space. We tested the walk-through idea at a redevelopment of Tegel and then in a refurbishment of Schönefeld, to see whether it would work. And it was very well accepted by German travellers, so we knew we could install it at the new airport. Duty free is a key revenue stream.”
Food & beverage will prove another highlight, added Minhorst, with a wide array of local, regional and international options.
“We will have a strong range of food & beverage services, from sit-down restaurants downstairs to a food court upstairs with a diverse choice for every wallet size,” he said.
Crucial to both retail and F&B will be a keen Sense of Place. Minhorst notes: “We wanted to make a clear statement that “˜this is Berlin’. We want people to have a clear feeling that they are departing from Berlin, not anywhere else. So creating a regional flavour with tenants from Berlin and from Brandenburg was important.
“We spent a lot of time talking to local companies about how we could bring them into the airport environment, mainly in food & beverage, but also in fashion, children’s goods and confectionery retail. And each of these sectors is represented through local partners.”
Berlin Brandenburg brings all of Berlin’s air traffic under one roof for the first time, with all passengers set to arrive and depart at a single main terminal. The terminal also has direct motorway access, and a six-track railway station lies underneath.
In addition, it gives Berlin the opportunity to compete with other top European airports as a genuine transfer airport for the first time. This was not possible previously, with two separate airports serving different markets.
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All of Berlin’s air traffic will be handled from a single building for the first time (Photo: Bjorn Rolle/Berlin Airports) |
Note: A full preview of Berlin’s new gateway appears in the January/February Print Edition of The Moodie Report, which appears in coming days.
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