Gavin McKechnie, Vice President-Commercial ADAC, has confirmed that the airport operator has sent out an EOI to 11 companies for the upcoming RFP process, which will take place on 29th April (postponed from the 28th April).

 

All those that want to take place in the RFP process have to attend a presentation where ADAC will go through ‘every part of the RFP document’. “We’re also going to give them all the scoring sheets so they know how we will score them and we’re going to present it in a unique way that we have never done before and I don’t think anyone else has either,” McKechnie told TRBusiness this afternoon.

 

The 700,000sq m Midfield Terminal Building – 52sq m in height – will feature a total commercial space of 28,500sq m. This will include 11,000sq m of F&B, 10,000sq m of specialty retail and 7,500sq m of duty free retail.

 

“Abu Dhabi Airports Company is looking for a non-exclusive duty free operator(s) to design, construct, finance, manage, maintain and operate the duty free concession(s),” says ADAC in its EOI letter sent out yesterday.

 

The duty free concession will be split into the categories detailed in the table below and bidders are invited to submit bids for individual Package A, B or C on a non-exclusive basis.

 

 

ADAC says that the EOI submission to ADAC should demonstrate the retailer’s ability to operate the duty free concession(s) and must include, as a minimum, the following:

 

1. Signed confidentiality agreement.
2. Confirmation on the capability to deliver the requisite concession as outlined in the EOI.
3. Brief profile of the company including details of registered office, branch offices and trade license copy;
4. A point of contact to which ADAC may address all future correspondence;
5. A bankers cheque for the sum of AED10,000 payable to ADAC LLC (being the RFP fee).

 

Interested parties must submit their EOI by 16.00 on 21 April. Bidders who express an interest in receiving the full duty free concession(s) RFP will be invited to attend a pre-tender briefing at 11am on 29 April at ADAC HQ.

 

McKechnie says ADAC wants to strike a balance between transparency and innovation with this tender process. “We want to be transparent, but we want to be innovative as well. We want to make sure each company gives us the best bid to match what we are looking for, so we are comparing like for like, but we also want to be innovative.

 

Gavin McKechnie, Vice President-Commercial ADAC.

 

“We couldn’t just give them a 900 page document and say ‘here you go, come back to us when you’re ready’. We wanted to do something a little more creative. We’ve tried very hard in this respect, I don’t know if we have pulled it all off, but we’ve definitely raised the bar.”

 

The EOI has a deadline for return next week, and the RFP will follow on Tuesday 29^th April [the date was moved to ‘fit everything in’ according to McKechnie]. “All the duty free operators will be here on the same day so they all see each other, they will find out who their competition is; it doesn’t get much more transparent than that.”­