GERMANY. Frankfurt airport management is moving on confidently with a massive retail expansion involving investment of well over €100 million (US$108.2 million) over the next decade. This will see retail space in the two existing terminals increase to 20,000 sq m from its current 13,630 sq m by 2007.
Additionally, a new third terminal, on the site of the nearly US air base, is set to open late in the decade, with a major retail presence.
Norbert Minhorst, senior manager business development retail for Frankfurt airport owner Fraport, told The Moodie Report that retailing space at the location has historically been limited to 10,000 sq m but that is being radically increased under a retail master plan for T1 and development of T2. T1 is dominated by Lufthansa (70%) and Star Alliance traffic and handles around 39 million passengers out of total traffic of around 48 million passengers.
Fraport’s plans and vision for Frankfurt will be the subject of a major feature in the inaugural special print edition of The Moodie Report, to be published next month. This will also be featured online.
A completely new shopping and service complex is being created in T1, adding around 3,000 sq m of retail floor space. Additionally a new retail pavilion is being added to T2 with construction due to begin in 2004. This will add another 1,700 sq m of retailing space, including duty free and Travel Value shops, speciality stores and others. In both terminals, the new space is being ideally sited just beyond security.
This week the airport opened a new bookstore in T1 Concourse A. The stylish and upmarket “ImPRESSed” outlet is run by the Hachette Distribution Services chain, Relay.
Unlike the rest of the airport, retail will play an integral role in the planning of the whole T3 project. The new terminal will be opened in phases, with the first phase handling 8-10 million passengers. “Today at Frankfurt, both sectors, aviation and non-aviation, are working in the same direction. That is new and very important,” said Minhorst.
Minhorst praised the airport’s duty free and Travel Value retailer, Gebr Heinemann. He said the travel value concept has proved an outstanding success with consumers. “People quickly learned [post abolition] that prices had stayed the same and that they could also buy on arrival,” he said.
“Post-abolition, we suffered for the first 12 months in income terms but then we were back to where we were before. Other airports took a lot longer – if they did come back.
“Gebr Heinemann has been a very reliable partner – if they say they will do something, we don’t need to think twice,” he added. “The main word in industry conferences over recent years has been partnership and we think Frankfurt is a very good example of that partnership.”
Next year the retailer will open a major new Travel Value shop in the baggage reclaim area of the Schengen concourse. “A lot of arriving passengers, especially business travellers, buy,” said Minhorst, “especially as there are no volume limitations.”
Note: For the first eight months of the year, to 31 July, traffic at Frankfurt was down -2.0% year-on-year and -1.9% for July alone. Full traffic and sales analysis will be included in next month’s feature.
