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Longchamp CEO Jean Cassegrain celebrates Heathrow breakthrough |
UK. Luxury brand Longchamp and travel retailer Aelia celebrated the official opening of the new Longchamp boutique at London Heathrow Airport Terminal 1 on Friday.
The boutique, which began trading three weeks ago, marks the debut at London Heathrow Airport and with airport operator BAA for both French companies.
As reported, the 60sq m store offers the brand’s major leather lines, smaller accessories and travel items. The range includes the Kate Moss for Longchamp collection (Heathrow is the first UK airport to offer the signature product) and the latest Gatsby it bag.
Friday’s Champagne ceremony was graced by Longchamp CEO Jean Cassegrain, Aelia Deputy Business Development Director John Rimmer and London Heathrow Retail Concessions Director Brian Woodhead.
Aelia Chairman and CEO Jean-Baptiste Morin, who was prevented from attending by a flight delay out of Paris, told The Moodie Report in a telephone interview after the opening: “It’s a really good day for us. We have a close relationship historically with Longchamp, which is a very impressive and innovative brand.
“We’re therefore very pleased to make our debut with BAA through Longchamp. Now we hope to build our business with BAA and there will be more projects, we hope, in the future. This is a very promising debut for us.”
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Guests gather for the formal opening of the new Aelia-run Longchamp boutique at Heathrow Airport Terminal 1 |
Click on the arrow above to join the opening of Aelia’s new Longchamp boutique at Heathrow |
Cassegrain told The Moodie Report (click on the Podcast icon for full interview): “We are very proud and happy at this new venture. Heathrow is one of the largest airports in Europe and it’s very important for us to be well-represented. We are also very pleased that Aelia trusted us with their first [BAA] venture in the UK.
“The store is operated by Aelia but it has our name on the door so it’s important to know that we are in good hands.
“Travel retail is important for us. We are one of the leading fashion brands in travel retail and we want to keep that leading position and keep expanding. We also want to do it better in terms of quality, upgrading the look of the stores, and this new shop is a very good example of how we see airport retailing for us in coming years.”
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The Longchamp line-up includes a range of handbags, accessories, travel items and the Kate Moss collection |
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John Rimmer told The Moodie Report: “Heathrow is one of the major airports worldwide and it’s got an unparalleled reputation for retail and we’re delighted to be part of that at last.
“Longchamp is a brand we know very well from our activities in France, where it works very well for us. It’s a brand that we feel very confident in for London Heathrow. It’s got the right profile here in T1 and is already working well in the few weeks it has been open.”
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Longchamp CEO Jean Cassegrain: “We are very pleased that Aelia trusted us with their first [BAA] venture in the UK. The store is operated by Aelia but it has our name on the door so it’s important to know that we are in good hands.” |
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A true French partnership: Longchamp’s Jean Cassegrain and Aelia’s John Rimmer celebrate the new alliance |
Rimmer said that the airline and passenger profile at the terminal was ideally suited to Longchamp.
Lufthansa, for example, flies out of T1 (“Longchamp is a major brand in Germany,” he noted) and there is a lot of spend coming from the heavy American traffic through the terminal, he added. Encouragingly, the brand is also proving attractive to the large number of domestic travellers using T1.
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Brian Woodhead welcomes a new addition to Heathrow |
BAA’s Brian Woodhead was equally enthusiastic about the latest addition to Heathrow’s already glittering retail line-up. “Longchamp is a really good fit for the new passenger base at Terminal 1… it fits extraordinarily well.
“[New openings] keep the variety there, they keep it fresh and we know that such variety and freshness keeps stimulating people to go into our shops and spend their time the way I’d like them to spend it when they’re in our airport – enjoying the retailing experience.
ABOUT LONGCHAMP
Longchamp was founded in Paris in 1948 by Jean Cassegrain (grandfather of the current CEO). The company is still owned and run by the Cassegrain family. Combining affordable luxury with French flair and craftsmanship, Longchamp has more than 130 stand-alone boutiques worldwide and is available in some 2,000 multi-brand stores in 101 countries.
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Aelia’s John Rimmer lauds BAA debut with Longchamp |
ABOUT AELIA
Aelia is part of the Lagardère Services group. The group operates 3,800 travel retail stores across the world, including a presence at over 100 airports, and is the channel’s leading news and gifts retailer.
Aelia, the group’s duty free and luxury goods specialist, operates over 160 stores at 23 airports, including Paris Charles de Gaulle, Nice Côte d’Azur, London Luton, Prague Ruzyne and Warsaw Frédéric Chopin. The group also operates sales onboard airlines through subsidiary Aeroboutique Inflight Retail, at port stores in Spain (Barcelona, Valencia and Palma de Mallorca) and at the Eurotunnel and Eurostar terminals on the French mainland.
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