Alexander Anson, Chief Operating Officer at 3Sixty Duty Free has shared a timely update on the flagship retail refurbishment of its main store at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW).

“Unfortunately the development is running late; instead of being completed in the second half of this year it will be the first half of next year,” he told Luke Barras-Hill during a sit-down video chat at the TFWA World Exhibition in Cannes.

Click below to watch the full interview.

Despite being disappointed at the delay, largely due to circumstances outside the company’s control, Anson makes clear that hasn’t hampered the omni-channel, inflight and ground store travel retailer’s performance.

In September, 3Sixty Duty Free and Chanel unveiled a new travel retail fragrance and beauty boutique for the latter at Terminal D with performances ‘already beating expectations’.

In a wide-ranging interview, Anson reflects on the healthy recovery in PAX and retail trading in the US market, with airports such as Fort Lauderdale experiencing very strong summer peaks with travel and spending indicators continuing to improve following the lifting of international travel restrictions in November last year.

Asia, unsurprisingly, has witnessed a slower recovery, but there have been some ‘hotspots’ in locations such as Singapore, continued Anson, with carrier Singapore Airlines experiencing faster momentum.

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Also in September, 3Sixty Duty Free opened flagship duty free and duty paid shops at Orlando International Airport’s $2.8 billion Terminal C building, which inaugurated in September in partnership with the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority.

Anson praised the encouraging early trading signs as 3Sixty looks ahead to further store refurbishments at MCO.

“We’ve made a significant amount of investment over the last couple of years and have refurbished a whole lot as well,” he said.

“I’m very pleased to say our shareholders have backed us during the crisis and we’ve got our business in better shape than before Covid. We are in the best possible shape to take advantage of 2023.”

The company announced an exclusive partnership recently with travel retail tech firm Inflyter to broaden the travel retail assortment to more than 900 million domestic passengers in the US.

The agreement twins 3Sixty’s omnichannel expertise and sizeable operational footprint with Inflyter’s proprietary travel retail platform to enable travellers to shop online and receive home delivery to any US address.

While news of the partnership had yet to officially emerge at the time of this interview, Anson did hint towards its potential.

“It’s a real milestone in really being able to offer a travel retail proposition to what is the biggest market in the world – US domestic travellers that today are totally underserved and we believe we can do a phenomenal job with our partners to deliver a real game-changer.”

For more video interviews, see the TRBusiness November/December e-zine November/December e-zine.