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AIRPORT WORKERS A RICH SOURCE OF RETAIL SALES

For some, it’s a mall at work. Employees stroll past a bookstore at Newark Liberty International Airport. Continental Airlines sends staff e-mails detailing discounts.

When airports and their vendors slashed retail prices to “street level” in the 1990s, a new world of opportunity opened up to them. Not only did travelers start dining and shopping more boldly, but concessionaires discovered a wealth of additional sales potential among a more grounded group of consumers: airport workers.

Upwards of 750,000 airport and airline workers have access to the secure areas of U.S. airports, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. While this group doesn’t boast the collective clout wielded by frequent flyers, its numbers continue to open a lot of eyes in the industry — and a lot of cash registers.

Baggage handlers, maintenance workers, ticket sellers and security staff all have this in common: Their nearest shopping venue is right in their immediate workplace.

“The employee market offers huge potential,” said retail development consultant Ian F. Thomas, chairman of Vancouver, British Columbia-based Thomas Consultants. “Airports are realizing that if their goods and services don’t cost employees more, then why wouldn’t their workers shop there, and why wouldn’t they eat there?”

Westfield America Trust, which develops and manages concessions in several of the busiest U.S. airports, markets its retail wares to airport workers vigorously; they are encouraged to do their holiday shopping on-site, says Timothy S. Lowe, Westfield’s executive vice president of development.

“We have recognized a phenomenal capacity with airport employees,” Lowe said. “In nonpublic areas, 98 percent of employees are badged. They are there every day ... and the airport is becoming their shopping mall. It’s a clear advantage for tenants.”

The stores Westfield operates frequently offer employee-appreciation sales of 20 to 40 percent off; they even place sales fliers in employee break rooms. Continental Airlines sends daily e-mails to its Newark International Airport workers detailing special discounts, Lowe says.

Boston’s Logan International Airport asks its concessionaires to grant 10 percent discounts to airport and airline workers, says Mark Knight, regional director of BAA-USA, an operator of shops and restaurants at Logan.

Puente Concessions, which runs a dozen businesses at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, offers airport workers a year-round 10 percent discount at its gift shops, newsstands and five Frullati Café & Bakery stores, as well as 20 percent off at its wine shop. “It’s good policy,” said co-owner Gina Puente-Brancato. “Concessionaires are crazy not to acknowledge this opportunity.”

Until about a decade ago, Christmas gift pickings at airports were as slim as a bag of airline peanuts. But today’s product mix, which includes designer clothing, art, perfume, golf merchandise, specialty-food gift baskets, bath products, jewelry, electronics, discovery toys, spa services, books and personal organizers, to list only a few, provides airport workers the equivalent of traditional malls.

And restaurants may benefit from this captive market even more than shops do. “Sometimes [restaurants] see 20 to 25 percent of their business from employee sales,” said BAA’s Knight. Shops get less, though they can see upwards of a 10 percent boost or more around the holidays, if they are more gift-oriented, he adds.

Bruce Ray, who has been a pilot for a major U.S. carrier for a dozen years (he declined to identify the airline), says he’s more apt to dine at domestic airports today than when he began flying. “You get a lot more value for your dollar now,” he said. “It’s gone from one corporation providing all the food at airports at low quality and inflated prices to a nice variety of good meals at restaurants like those you’d find in town, and at reasonable prices.”

There are about 750,000 airport and airline workers across the United States with access to stores like this one at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston.

But while ticketed travelers and employees now have more choice, airport visitors — the “meeters and greeters” — have less, with no access past checkpoints since the 2001 terrorist attacks. Most eateries and shops remain post-security, and that makes it tough for family members to bid farewell to loved ones, or for travelers passing through to meet friends or relatives for a quick bite at the airport. Still, none of this matters, according to Lowe.

“Meeters and greeters are not big spenders, we have found,” Lowe said. “They may need a coffee or a newspaper or a snack or a sandwich, but that’s about it. But we do try to make sure their needs are met.”

To reach this segment, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport plans to turn 4,000 square feet of space between its ticket counters and security areas into an all-access meeter-greeter retail area, says Kottayam Natarajan, the airport’s manager of business development.

At San Francisco International Airport, Allegro Restaurant, which is accessible to both ticketed passengers and nonticketed visitors, is among the small percentage of airport businesses that can offer a place for travelers to rendezvous with visitors and relatives. But a manager there estimates that sales remain off 30 percent from what they were before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Even so, the employees are still there.

— SM

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