South Korean travel retail giant Lotte Duty Free has been selected to operate the inflight duty free business for the country’s low-cost carrier Jeju Air.

Inflight duty free shop consignments will begin on 1 December as part of the seven-year contract, which expects to net Lotte Duty Free annual sales of KRW 16 billion/$11.1 million.

Kap Lee, CEO of Lotte Duty Free, said in a statement: “At a time when domestic overseas travel in the country is in full swing, we have acquired the business rights of Jeju Air’s inflight duty free shop business. We will continue to work hard to open up the market.”

An official signing ceremony held on 28 September was attended by Kim Joo-nam, General Manager of Lotte Duty Free’s Korea business division and Koh Kyung-pyo, Head of the Commercial Division at Jeju Air.

Lotte says it intends to strengthen its alcohol assortments, including whiskey and wines favoured by Korean customers, while introducing limited edition products and categories such as cosmetics, cigarettes, accessories and health food items onboard.

Online duty free shop ‘temporarily suspended’ 

A statement on Jeju Air’s website posted earlier this month says online duty free shop services are to be temporarily suspended from 1 October ‘for the renewal of the Jeju Air online inflight duty free shop site’.

“We look forward to seeing you with a new service that allows for more diverse products and convenient purchase,” it read.

Lotte continues to work hard to diversify its customer base and generate new sources of revenue, as it rebuilds following the impacts of the Covid-19 crisis on the industry.

In May, it unveiled a new downtown store in Sydney and is expected to throw open the doors to a new shop in Da Nanag, Vietnam in the second half of this year and a further store in Hanoi in 2023.

As revealed by TRBusiness, Lotte Duty Free’s grand opening of it Singapore Changi Airport L&T shops – which will complete the so-called ‘LDF Belt’ across Asia Pacific – is slated for the first half of 2023.

For more on Lotte Duty Free, watch out for the TRBusiness Top 10 International Operators report available online, and in print from the press racks at the TFWA World Exhibition & Conference in Cannes.