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As revealed last month, a star-studded field of nine, including the industry’s biggest and most ambitious retailers, is set to contest the Copenhagen tender | ||
DENMARK. In a move that management says will have a “significant impact” on the duty free business, currently out to tender, Copenhagen Airports plans to change the location of its security checkpoints.
There are currently two checkpoints for departing international passengers at Scandinavia’s largest airport: one in Terminal 2 and one in Terminal 3. These checkpoints will be replaced by a new, central checkpoint in order to ensure that the airport meets new regulatory requirements and minimises passenger waiting time.
The change, scheduled for next year, will have positive repercussions for the airport’s new duty and tax free contract, according to Copenhagen Airports Vice-President Commercial Affairs Henrik Busch. When the central security checkpoint has been established, international passengers will go directly from security check into the transit area passing one of Europe’s largest duty and tax free stores.
“We have looked at different possible locations and are now working with this solution which forms part of the tender material for the tax free contract,” said Busch.
The current contract, held by The Nuance Group, expires at the end of February 2007 and tenders have been invited for the new contract. As revealed by The Moodie Report in March, nine companies registered expressions of interest: incumbent Nuance, Aelia, Aer Rianta International, Aldeasa, Alpha, DFS Group, Dufry, Gebr Heinemann and Global Airport Services (the joint venture between World Duty Free and Crossbar Associates).
Shortly before Easter, the tender material was sent to the nine companies.
“We are pleased with this extensive interest. Among the operators who have expressed an interest, there are some who we would not off-hand have expected to be interested in this part of the world,” said Busch [the prime example being DFS, which is also involved in the Sydney Airport duty free tender happening simultaneously. As in Copenhagen, Macquarie Airports is the lead shareholder in Sydney Airport – Ed].
He said he expected tenders to be submitted by 6 June and that a decision can be made by the end of August.
“So, there is plenty of time to plan the changes required by a completely new security checkpoint,” Busch concluded. “We expect that the central checkpoint will increase the already large passenger flow in the area around the tax free store.”
Copenhagen Airport handled more than 20 million passengers last year and is the world’s 17th largest airport in terms of international departing passengers.
