A record 37m passengers spent $220m (+12%) on F&B, retail and passenger services at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, including record DF&TR sales +27% to $21m.

 

Sales per departing passenger rose to $11.70 as the Port of Seattle Authority earned $33m in revenues which it says will be ploughed straight back into airport improvements.

 

International passengers increased by 243,183 to 3,822,548 (+6.8%) and domestic by +7.8% accounted for the balance, with Dufry benefiting as both the duty free concessionaire and the news and gift retailer through the Hudson Group.

 

​This was the fourth year in a row that Sea-Tac has reported record traffic levels, with the 7.7% growth in total numbers exceeding all previous projections by 7.7% in 2014 over 2013. Airport management claims that this makes Sea-Tac ‘the fastest growing large hub airport in the US.”

 

“The economy of this region continues to grow and Sea-Tac Airport reflects that,” said Mark Reis, Managing Director of Sea-Tac Airport. “These numbers show this has been an under-served region, as airlines continue to add options for business and leisure travellers and the planes continue to fill up.

 

A VERY HEALTHY AIRPORT….

“This is an exciting time and Sea-Tac’s growth continues to show it is a premier international airport and economic engine for our region.”

 

The total 2014 passenger figure of 37,497,941 beat the previous record set in 2013 of 34,826,741 – an increase of more than 2.6m passengers. This translates into an average of more than 100,000 travellers a day.

 

Twenty-seven new services were added at Sea-Tac in 2014 including five new (previously unnerved) non-stop destinations (New Orleans, Tampa, Hong Kong, Jackson Hole, and Cancun). New services added to an airlines network, included 19 by Delta, six by Alaska and one each by Frontier and Southwest.

 

As an added few nuggets of trivia, Sea-Tac said its Anthony’s Restaurant in the central terminal is now believed to be the highest grossing airport restaurant in North America with $13.4m in sales in 2014.

 

Meanwhile, the ‘notable 2014 product sales’ from Hudson retail included 121,754 Seahawks; 27,500 packages of beef jerky; 58,700 packages of Kleenex; and 830,000 bottles of water. Dufry’s duty free shop also sold one very special bottle of Rémy Martin Cognac for $24,000.

 

At the same time, Butter London performed 16,445 manicures and 8,090 pedicures, while selling 16,522 nail lacquers and the Massage Bar served 52,000 customers, performing 84,000 different massages.