Dermot Davitt with Abu Dhabi Airports Managing Director and CEO Elena Sorlini at the MEADFA Conference 2024.

The opening day of the MEADFA Conference 2024 in Abu Dhabi (18 November) saw Abu Dhabi Airports Managing Director and CEO Elena Sorlini take to the stage to deliver an in-depth insight into the impact of Zayed International Airport’s (AUH) new Terminal A and how retail will evolve as the hub targets 41 million passengers by 2029.

Currently, the airport has capacity to serve 45 million passengers and 79 aircraft at any given time.

Its opening in November 2023 marked a major milestone in the development of Abu Dhabi’s travel industry and is pegged to help propel the expansion of tourism in the region.

In the session titled ‘Gateway to the world’, moderated by Dermot Davitt, Sorlini revealed that the airport is on track to receive almost 29 million annual passengers by the end of this year.

“We are the fastest growing airport in the Middle East,” she said. “Considering two years ago we were at 17 million passengers, we have almost doubled the size of the airport. It’s a huge step.

“We have doubled the commercial square metres that we have – we have about 35,000 sqm and 163 new outlets in a new, beautiful, efficiently operated airport which creates growth in terms of traffic, with very happy passengers and good results. We are very pleased.”

Before the pandemic, AUH received 18 airlines plus Etihad, the home carrier. Now there are more than 31 carriers flying in and out of the hub, serving more than 125 destinations, compared to 80 destinations pre-Covid.

“Doubling the passengers and growing so fast means the passenger profile is in constant evolution, which poses some challenges to the concessionaires as we need to constantly adapt and keep fine tuning the offer to make sure we match what passengers want at the airport,” she said.

Abu Dhabi Airports has recently announced its strategy to 2029 and is targeting 41 million passengers within those five years.

“I think the lesson learned is that we don’t deliver these results by ourselves,” she said. “We work side by side with our partners. The concessionaires have played a very important role. We are working with the entire airport community.”

Sorlini described how AUH is a small community that is working in a “perfectly synchronised” way.

A hands-on CEO, she revealed how she has the names and numbers of the staff in the shops and how this approach demonstrates the intention to providing optimum support.

“We are going to announce very shortly the new CCO,” she said, explaining that having a personable knowledge of the airport herself helps not only from an operational point of view but also from a practical stance of helping fulfil requirements from the concessionaires side.

Sorlini went on to describe the relationships with the two main concessionaires: Aer Rianta International Middle East and Lagardère Travel Retail.

“They are doing an amazing job and the offer is impressive,” she said. “It has been a journey. I think especially duty free works a bit like a chemistry formula. You need to get exactly the right mix in terms of products, categories, brands, price to match the passenger profile and the passenger profile has been a moving target. So trying to understand exactly what is and what is not working has taken quite a while.

“But I think at the moment, we are really seeing a very good result. So we are pleased and passengers are very pleased as well.

“Aer Rianta has a wonderful shop just after security – all the passengers are coming together in this central area. So we have given them more space to be more visible to these passengers and to capture them physically.

“Same with Lagardère – we are trying to improve the arrivals shop and have given them more space to develop an extra offer.”

AUH is currently working with an agency to see how the visibility of the offer could be enhanced.

Sorlini described how, when Terminal A launched, Abu Dhabi Airports triggered an advertising campaign and a series of activations to help raise awareness of the new terminal and what is available there to help passengers become more familiar with the offering.

In addition to capturing the attention of frequent travellers, this has helped AUH to pique the interest of those who travel less often (and so may not be as familiar with the facilities), before they arrive at the airport.

“We have a particular mix [of passenger traffic] for an airport in the Middle East,” she explained. “We have the luck to have a 50% mix of B2B and 50% transfer driven traffic.

“The point-to-point is, to be honest, the traffic we like the most. They are spending more. They come well in advance to the terminal so we have been working with them to make sure they understand what is the offer. I have statistical evidence that shows everyone is really happy with the shops that we have.”

As the transfer time at AUH is typically not very long, the airport is also targeting these types of travellers before they get to the airport, through the airlines.

As such, AUH has a year-long campaign booked with Etihad, with a video playing on the in-flight entertainment system that showcases the activation, events and other elements they can expect from the shops and F&B.

“You need to connect the dots,” she said. “When the passenger is at the airport they don’t really know who is in front of them – they just see people [staff] and they think this is the airport, so we have the responsibility to connect the dots.

“From a digital, technological and data collection perspective, it’s the same thing. We need to connect the dots and make sure that we collect the data, that we understand traveller behaviour and decide how to use it to ensure they spend more and enjoy the experience more at the airport. This is the area that we really need to work together [on].”

She emphasised how having great data is a must, but how it needs to be utilised correctly for maximum effect. Key to this is reassuring passengers that they have enough time and then delivering those important messages from a commercial perspective.

The solution, for Sorlini’s perspective, is having a single platform to integrate targeted communications to passengers.

“How we integrate all of this is the challenge and is what we need to focus on moving forward,” she said.

Ultimately, AUH is focusing on growth and is expecting a 10% increase in traffic in 2025 and will continue on the track of supporting its partners.

As she summarised: “We are thinking about a redesign of the space, new digital solutions and in general the work here is to constantly improve and fine tune and to never stop. This is the secret to getting things working.”

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