Flemingo International has been awarded duty free concessions to operate at nine Indian airports, including Chennai, Kolkata, Calicut, Trichy, Mangalore, Goa, Ahmadabad, Amritsar and Lucknow.

 

 

All these concessions will run from 2016 until 2023, although the Trichy Airport business is covered by a 10-year agreement. Flemingo now has the sole duty free rights to sell liquor, tobacco, confectionery, perfume and cosmetics, fashion, fashion accessories, electronics and destination categories.

 

 

Commenting on the new gains, Atul Ahuja, CEO at Flemingo International said: “We are very pleased to continue our long-standing relationship with Airport Authority of India and to get another proof, in face of some stiff competition, that our approach is a winning one. This win reaffirms our position as the number one duty free player in the region.

 

 

 

“Flemingo’s footprint would be highly visible to the international travellers, as Chennai and Kolkata airports are amongst the top five international airports, with connections to all the major destinations across the world,” he said.

 

 

Ahuja continued: “Since making our debut in India, we have developed an understanding of the market which is next to none. “We look forward to delivering world-class service for the AAI airports and its passengers.”

 

 

This ‘understanding’ Ahuja refers to would appear to include an ability to bring this tender to a positive conclusion after several attempts by the Airport Authority of India (AAI) to tender these airport businesses in small clusters failed.

 

 

AAI ‘DELIGHTED’

Commenting on this new development, Deepak Shastri, APD, Chennai International Airport, AAI said: “We are delighted to have Flemingo International partner us in bringing alive the retail and duty free concepts at the international airports across India.

 

 

“This partnership has worked for us in the past and now we are looking forward to some exciting new concepts to provide passengers a unique experience and world class Duty Free Shopping”.

 

 

 

Another recent change is the appointment of Anirban Dutta Chowdhury as the new CEO from Nuance Group India, who commented: “We would like to thank the Airport Authority of India for having accepted our proposal and giving us the opportunity to continue working with them.”

 

Anirban added: “We are confident that we will continue to delight the passengers passing through the airports. A contract duration of at least seven years and with commercial space increasing by two times in most of the locations gives us an added impetus to roll out our new store concepts and more effective merchandising and marketing plans.”

 

 

The retail operator adds that it has also undertaken a host of new ‘E-initiatives’, including the launch of Flemingo Reserve, a new dedicated pre-order website for all Flemingo operations which will be available for all customers at its Indian airports in future.

 

 

Currently, Flemingo now operates at 11 international airports and eight seaports, with these duty free outlets located in Chennai, Kolkata, Goa, Trivandrum, Calicut, Mangalore, Trichy, Amritsar, Jaipur, Lucknow, Ahmedabad airports, and the seaports in Mumbai, Haldia, Paradip, Goa, Kolkata, JNPT, Mangalore, Mundra.

 

 

As is well documented, it also operates 50,000sq ft of retail space at Mumbai Duty Free in a joint venture with DFS Group, as well as some fashion and accessories outlets at Delhi International Airport.