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AIRLINE NEWS Inflight retailers eye victory in ‘IAG Spanish airline tenders’


Inflight concessionaires are competing for duty free and buy-on-board tenders across four Spanish airlines held by International Airlines Group (IAG), several reliable industry sources have told TRBusiness. Tenders for Iberia, Iberia Express, Level


and Vueling are at an established stage, with the results due in the coming month, it is understood. TRBusiness can also reveal exclusively


that Dutyfly Solutions – the joint venture between Lagardère Travel Retail and Servair – is bidding with gateretail to secure the four concessions, with the suggestion these could either be parcelled up and awarded as one ‘mega contract’ or splintered into individual ones. Alpha LSG and Tourvest Retail Services


are other possible – but unconfirmed – suitors for the contracts, while Inflight Sales Group (ISG) is not understood to be entering. Dutyfly Solutions defends the Iberia


contract it renewed in 2016. Gateretail currently operates the inflight retail business onboard Vueling, Level and Iberia Xpress. Separately, the much-vaunted British


Airways duty free contract currently held by Tourvest is also believed to be up for tender, although further information was not immediately available to TRBusiness at the time this report went to press. The new contracts could begin from


June 2020 and run for around three years, according to one source. British Airways, IAG and Tourvest


declined to comment when approached by this publication.


ACI fires capacity warning as traffic up 6%


Conversely, EU airports closed the year with growth of nearly +7%. The top five airports returned a softened


performance at +4.8%, down from +5.5% in 2017, although collectively they attracted an additional 16.5m passengers. The dip in performance was reflected


Passenger traffic across Europe’s airports reached a record 2.34bn (+6.1%) in 2018 in a resilient performance, but factors including capacity pressures are likely to put a strain on future travel volumes, says ACI Europe. In its full-year traffic report, the voice of


Europe’s airports highlighted moderate, yet dynamic, passenger growth last year in the face of underlying economic and geopolitical threats. Passenger growth at non-EU airports (+8.3%) outstripped that


(+5.4%). However, growth in the former experienced a downturn, registering +3.5% in December versus +14.6% in January.


FEBRUARY 2019


in factors such as capacity limitations, intensifying hub competition and airline strikes. Frankfurt notched the highest growth


(+7.8%), followed by Istanbul-Atatürk (+6.4%), Paris Charles de Gaulle (+4%), Amsterdam Schiphol (+3.7%) and London Heathrow (+2.7%). In volume terms, LHR remained the busiest airport with 80.1m. “Capacity and quality are now major


issues for an increasing number of airports across Europe,” said ACI Europe Director General Olivier Jankovec. “This of course requires investment


at EU airports


but also greater operational efficiency – through effective airport-ATM integration and alignment with all other stakeholders.”


www.scorpioworldwide.com TRBUSINESS 11


Aigle Azur gets pre-order through Inflight Sales Group


French Airline Aigle Azur has launched an online duty free pre-order service with inflight concessionaire partner Inflight Sales Group (ISG). The platform allows customers to purchase


products such as cosmetics, perfumes and gifts. The French carrier struck an agreement to manage the onboard duty free and buy-on-board business in April 2018. This became effective in the beginning of June. An ISG statement read: “This new service


offers to passengers more flexibility and the opportunity to enjoy interesting prices, as well as the delivery of their purchases directly on board in just a few clicks.” Once visiting the homepage www.


aigleazur.com to order their tax free items or doing so at boutique.aigle-azur. com, products will be delivered directly to passengers’ seats inflight.


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