Spain’s airport operator, Aena, has turned its retail business around in spectacular fashion since 2011, with commercial revenue in 2015 reaching €912m/$1,03bn.

Aena has achieved the success by accelerating its low commercial growth rates which were around the +3.8% mark between 2011 and 2013, to high double digits in 2014 and 2015 of +13.2% and +15.1%. How was this achieved?

In the period 2011-2015 [part of which was a very lean time for Spanish air traffic] the airport operator proactively mined a rich retail seam by running 600 tenders over the period [more than 400 on the shops side and almost 200 in F&B] to extract some high bids and fees which are now appearing in its P&L.

At ACI Europe’s recent commercial forum, Aena’s Commercial Director, José Manuel Fernández Bosch, explained how, from the landlord side, the business was turned around to deliver the €912m in commercial revenue last year [up from €651m in 2011]. That year the company – which runs practically all of Spain’s airports – was experiencing decreasing traffic.

The sharp commercial uplift wasn’t due to a rise in passenger traffic. Fernández Bosch said: “It came from a turnaround in commercial activities as we pushed all the levers in the commercial area including negotiations with our commercial partners.”

LEVERAGING SPACE

Among the other levers were increasing retail space by +13% and shop units including F&B by +26% in the 2011-2015 period to ensure a big rise in sales/pax from €10.64 to €13.32.

Among the retail segments the effects of increased space – helped by a rebound in passenger traffic to and through Spain in the period – has led to a proportional rise in sales, except for the High Street segment which has easily outperformed the others.

So for example, duty free sales have risen by +37% from a space increase of +34%; luxury was up by +207% from extra space of +220%; and speciality retail rose by +10% from a space increase of +9%. The High Street offer of mainstream brands, however, delivered a +64% sales increase from +31% extra space (see image above).

Next up, Fernández Bosch says Aena is transforming from a B2B business to B2C meaning wider interaction with its business partners and passengers – and digital tools expected to make a big contribution going forward.

[See the June issue of TRBusiness for the second part of our report on the ACI Europe retail conference.]