Incumbent operator Egyptair Duty Free has won the Hurghada Airport T2 duty free tender after offering a premium minimum annual guarantee of $27.1m.

This follows a similar auction process to that seen in the F&B tender yesterday where bidders engaged in the duty free auction process for the best part of three hours after the concession fee baseline was equalised at 37.5%.

A total of seven retail companies fought it out over the period, with Dufry and Flemingo pulling out after a few rounds, leaving Egyptair and Heinemann to fight it out to the conclusion.

After intense bidding, Egyptair was declared the winner after offering a generous minimum annual guarantee of $27.1m. This came as a surprise to some considering the total sales turnover at Hurghada is said to have been only $32m last year and only 60% of the total traffic at the airport is moving to Terminal 2.

Hurghada is the second busiest airport in Egypt after Cairo and its route network consists of scheduled passenger services to Cairo and direct connections to several European destinations. Currently, more than 40 airlines operate charter flights mostly to Western and Eastern Europe, with well established German, Russian and Scandinavian route services.