TOP 10 AIRPORTS: DUBAI INTERNATIONAL 3 D


Dubai Duty Free registers $2.029bn in hard-fought 2019 performance


While Dubai International Airport settled in third place this year, with core duty free retailer Dubai Duty Free registering sales of US$2.029bn, it retained its title as the world’s busiest international airport in 2019 for a sixth consecutive year. Charlotte Turner reports.


espite having to close one of its runways in 2019, Dubai International Airport (DXB)


was able to hold onto its crown as the world’s busiest international airport for a sixth consecutive year. Home to long-haul carrier


Emirates, DXB registered 86.4 million passengers in 2019, down 3% from 2018. But this is still an impressive 6m more passengers than that of closest rival London Heathrow Airport. Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai


Airports said of the results: “While customer numbers in 2019 were lower than the preceding year, the impact of the 45-day closure of the runway, the bankruptcy of Jet Airways, as well as the grounding of the Boeing’s 737 Max accounted for an estimated 3.2 million passengers over the course of the year, and indicate underlying growth at DXB”. However, just a 3% slide in


passengers made trading conditions significantly more challenging for the airport’s duty free retail partner, Dubai Duty Free (DDF), who against the odds was still able to exceed $2bn once again in 2019. The travel retailer crossed the


US$2bn mark in late December 2019 following a highly successful 36th anniversary campaign over three days, which offered a 25% discount across a range of merchandise. The final result reported by


the company for last year was US$2.029bn in sales, representing a fractional increase of 0.7% on the US$2.015bn posted in 2018. Perfumes (15%) and liquor (15%)


each accounted for the lion’s share of sales, with returns of US$307.85m and US$304.24m, respectively. In third place, cosmetics (11%)


notched revenue of US$232.53m and displayed impressive year-on-year growth of +11%. Tobacco (11%) ranked fourth with


AUGUST 2020


sales of US$223.88m, followed by electronics at US$152.89m. Departure sales, which accounted for 89% of total revenue, grew by 1.5% year-on-year to US$1.808bn, while arrivals sales totalled US$181.98m and took a 9% share of total sales.


Phased revival programme In 2019, DDF enjoyed more than 24.3 million sales transactions – equating to a daily average of 66,500 – and a total of 64.578 million units of merchandise were sold in the year. While the sales statistics make for


impressive reading, the achievements were hard fought as the company’s Executive Vice Chairman and CEO Colm McLoughlin and Chief Operating Officer Ramesh Cidambi revealed to TRBusiness on numerous occasions over the course of 2019. While they were battle-weary,


we are sure both McLoughlin and Cidambi expected a more positive performance in 2020. However, for all of the top 10 airports in this list, this was not to be the case, as the Covid-19 pandemic reached its peak in Dubai in March this year. This forced DDF to close all of its stores on the 25th of that month. In a revealing video interview with


McLoughlin in April of this year, he told TRBusiness


that 111 members


of staff had tested positive for the virus. He said that the company was


making Dhs100,00/$27,000 each day through the sale of tickets for its ‘Finest Surprise’ and ‘Millennium Millionaire’ draws. McLoughlin said: “We’re taking about Dhs100,000 every day, but we should be taking Dhs20 million a day,” he stated. “But we’re living with it. All our


staff are on standby, they’re all being paid in full. We have no prediction of how long this is going to go on for. If I was to guess I would say that we’re certainly going to be closed for the next month or so.” In June of this year, it was the turn


of Cidambi to open up on the subject of Covid-19 and the impacts it was having on the business. As a member of an esteemed panel


for TRBusiness’ second TRConnect webinar, ‘Customer Engagement in the post-Covid-19 Travel Retail Context’, Cidambi told participants


“For a low forecast, we think we will finish the year with about $600m and in terms of a higher forecast, about $800m-$900m. But a lot of this depends on the blocks to people travelling easily.”


Ramesh Cidambi, Chief Operating Officer, Dubai Duty Free


TRBUSINESS 27


Above: Strict Covid-19 measures have been implemented at DXB T3 Arrivals.


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