The Alpha Future joint venture company is seeing very strong growth at Delhi Airport since it opened its shops a month ago and they are about to expand considerably.

Alpha Asia Managing Director Paul Topping told TREND that the sales mix is almost changing daily: ?Currently we have liquor at 49%, tobacco 16%, perfume 19%, confectionery 8%, destination merchandise 4%, and 3% for fashion and accessories.

?The sales split is 31% in arrivals and the arrivals space today is 1,200sq ft and that is going up to 2,200sq ft this week and then going to 4,400sq ft when Flemingo move out in February.

?The departure shop space today is 4,000sq ft and that moves to 5,500sq ft next week and then moves to 15,000sq ft in October. We've got 180 staff and 30 more to recruit and that compares with ITDC's 60 staff previously.

?If you look at the departures shops, liquor is accounting for 35% of the total and we think that is actually a little disappointing in terms of the mix against arrivals because we think we are being hit with all of this LAGs [liquids and gels-Ed] confusion.?

Topping added that India hasn't recognised the EU regulations so far, although Alpha Future staff are pointing out the problems to passengers at the shop tills.

The company is also continuing to lobby the authorities to move towards a bi-lateral security agreement with the EU, even though Topping says that Delhi?s security is as good, if not better than many other airports.

He added: ?The interesting thing for us is that in departures perfume sales account for 24% and I think that will grow even more and then if you take the fact that fashion accessories will have another 1,000sq ft, then that will also grow.?