Although it is too early to say with certainty who will be bidding for the 13-lot retail and F&B tender recently announced by Helsinki Airport, Elena Stenholm, Commercial Director and Vice President of Finavia at Helsinki Airport told TRBusiness that it has already received a lot of enquiries and that it does have a wish-list of brands for the proposed stores.

“Yes we do have a wish list and we’ve been discussing with the brands now for many, many months,” said Stenholm. “Basically we have requested some…that we expect tenderers to offer. In addition we have also identified ‘suggested’ brands, which means we expect the tenderers to offer that particular brand or an equally valid brand.”

There are certain categories for which companies are at liberty to suggest any brand they see fit, added Stenholm. “In this case we will see a couple of choices…In this way we can actually build a good commercial mix across categories and units.”

Naturally, Helsinki Airport (HEL) thoroughly reviewed its passenger profile – something which it tracks closely anyway – completing some ‘special studies’ that concentrated on the non-Schengen and transfer passengers.

“We are also constantly in contact with Finnair so we have an idea of how the traffic will develop and to which destinations,” said Stenholm. “So based on that, we have quite a good view on what we are missing at the moment and what we need to have.”

Elena Stenholm, Commercial Director and Vice President of Finavia at Helsinki Airport.

BEST AIRPORT IN NORTHERN EUROPE

According to ACI, HEL is the ‘no 1’ when it comes to its airline network and it is the best airport overall in Northern Europe according to Skytrax.

“This is of course great, but we do look forward to continuing growth to Asia for instance, and definitely it’s always important to have enough variation when it comes to airlines. So there are more airlines to come in the future. We currently work with about 50 airlines.”

TRBusiness understands that the non-Schengen Terminal will have a distinct clientele to that of Terminal 1, which will be finished in early 2019 and receives more passengers from low-cost carriers such as easyJet.

Regardless of the terminal, Helsinki Airport’s passenger traffic is growing at a phenomenal rate – +9.9% in 2017 to 18.9m – leading the airport authority to revise its original target for reaching 30m passengers.

“Our original target for a 30m passenger capacity was 2030, but we are growing much quicker than that,” said Stenholm. “Last year, traffic grew by 10% and now this spring it has been close to 12%, so you know it’s much quicker than we anticipated.

“So we were originally forecasting to have 20m by 2020, but now we are forecasting to have 21m this year and it’s only 2018. The 30m is definitely what we are getting ready for, but it will come probably much sooner than we anticipated.”

Helsinki Airport introduced Chinese-speaking guides as passengers of this nationality increased.

ENVIABLE SPEND PER HEAD 

Not only is the airport benefitting from a healthy increase of passenger traffic, but its spend per head is also enviably high.

“We have actually done some benchmarking and our spend her head is higher [than many other European airports] especially if you look at retail,” added Stenholm. “Of course there are big variations depending on brands, depending on the terminal areas. [But in general] our SPH could actually be described as ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’.”

Providing the size, scale and financial investment of the new units fits with a travel retailer’s profile, the new tender at Helsinki Airport would appear to present a viable business opportunity for numerous international operators – especially for Dufry (WDF) which currently operates at the airport.

However, if these companies were in any doubt Stenholm reassures them that this is an attractive proposition. “I would say definitely the passenger profile, the composition of it [is a selling point]; we have a lot of Asian passengers, Russian passengers, UK etc. It’s a very good international mix.”

NON-SCHENGEN & ASIA TRAFFIC +20-30%

Unfortunately, Helsinki says it does not receive a breakdown of travellers by nationality from its partner airlines, so it must wait for the results of its flight passenger study, which it conducts twice a year.

“But if I look at the growth by destination, which is not quite the same as nationality, then definitely the non-Schengen and Asian traffic has been growing – depending on the month – between 20 and 30%,” revealed Stenholm.

Another motivating factor for approaching this tender would be the efficiency of the airport’s passenger processing. “We are very good at that,” said Stenholm. “We are investing a lot in making sure it will stay that way and even improve. We will be also, in the future, all under one terminal, which makes transferring between planes easy and efficient.”

“Finally, I would say we are a very forward-looking airport so digital development is extremely important to us and also a strategic goal at Finavia level. It is something that we also expect our partners to develop actively.”

World Duty Free currently operates at Helsinki Airport.

COMMERCIAL RESULTS TO REFLECT PAX GROWTH

What’s more is that the average dwell time of passengers at HEL ‘at the moment’ is one hour and 52 minutes. “But that includes all kinds of passengers,” insisted Stenholm. “So within the transfer passengers we know there is a lot of variation.”

As TRBusiness has come to expect from the airport, it is tight-lipped about any retail growth forecasts for 2018, but we do know that the airport expects sales growth.

“Naturally, we expect retail revenue growth since passenger growth is very strong, so obviously we aim to keep growing when it comes to the commercial results,” said Stenholm. “Of course we have a lot of new units coming up in 2020/2021, so we will see a lot of good results and growth, but even before that we should see good organic growth.

“At the moment some brands are growing even by +40% compared to last year, but others not quite as much so there is a lot of variation within the retail sector. In F&B it’s more even between units and concepts and the growth trend is clear. We do anticipate growth over all.”