Despite the pressures in both regions, Aer Rianta International CEO Jack MacGowan has highlighted the retailer’s joint venture operation in Beirut Airport and its Dublin Airport business for praise in an exclusive interview with the TRBusiness recently.

Asked about the highlights over the year’s trading, MacGowan said: “There’s lot of other good things, but I suppose the main highlight for me has been the Beirut performance and that despite the troubles and the regional conflict, it’s had its highest ever month of sales last month.

MacGowan says this is due to the work put in by Beirut Duty Free General Manager Ciaran O’Neill and Finance Manager Mike Hennessy together with BDF Chairman Mohamad Zeidan (Phoenicia Aer Rianta Company).

MacGowan added: “The passenger numbers are not down too much. They are down, but the type of passenger going through there has changed dramatically. That is a real highlight for me.”

 

[Above and left: Beirut Duty Free fashion departments]

 

DUBLIN AIRPORT

Turning to Dublin Airport, MacGowan said that ARI has experienced sales growth over the summer of seven, six and eight per cent in the months of June, July and August and he was really pleased considering how tough this business has been in recent years.

“It’s brilliant. I mean that’s better than the Celtic Tiger [days] in some ways and on the back of that our passenger average spend in our shops in Dublin has been 1% higher than last year as well.

“So we’ve done extremely well in Dublin and we’re delighted with the performance – so much so that we’re actually accelerating our refurbishment investment into Terminal One.”

Maybe something also to say is that across all of our business we have a very holistic approach to concessions, to F&B and to the direct retail and that has helped us to identify this quickly and capitalize on it.

[An in-depth interview with ARI CEO Jack MacGowan appears in the World’s Top 10 Operators 2013 report which accompanies this issue-Ed.]