Pop-up stores and airline shops – the latest in airport retail

25 June 2010 | Several new initiatives in airport and airline retail have caught our eye recently, most notably airports opening dedicated retail spaces for temporary shops and airlines opening physical duty free stores. 

Pop-up shops, stores that only open for a limited time, have been a major retail trend in the past years. Airlines such as Delta, Southwest and Jetblue, and tourist boards from Atlantic City and New Zealand, have been runnning temporary spaces in New York and Tokyo. However, the temporary stores phenomenon hadn’t reached airports yet, but now Narita and Glasgow airports have opened dedicated retail spaces where shops come and go. 

Narita Airport opened a temporary Crocs footwear store on 28 April 2010, located landside at the airport’s Terminal 1. Crocs will operate the 30m2 store at the airport for 3 months until 29 July in the run-up to the summer travel season. For Narita Airport the Crocs shop is the first in a planned series of temporary stores at the airport that aim to capitalise on seasonal demand and special events. Tokyo Narita has created a dedicated space for the temporary stores at the 4^th floor of T1.

This Summer 2010, ‘Planeshop’ will open at Glasgow Airport. Billed as ‘a permanent shop with a flexible retailing concept’, the store itself will be permanent, but the brands operating it will alternate to keep the airport concession fresh and interesting. Brands will be able to change the shop’s exterior graphics to match their identity. Planeshop also includes a restaurant called Foodflight, free wi-fi for customers, and a complimentary downloadable playlist called Planemix, which changes every month. 

Taking a more traditional approach, but nevertheless worth mentioning, Swiss airlines has opened its first physical SWISS SHOP this month (June 2010) at Zurich Airport. The new SWISS SHOP complements the airline’s existing inflight and online duty free sales follows several WorldShop stores that Swiss-parent Lufthansa already operates at Frankfurt, Munich, Dusseldorf, Hamburg and Berlin airports. Apart from Swiss and Lufthansa-branded luggage from leading manufacturers, the airport shops range includes travel accessories, electronic devices, watches, jewelry and model aircraft. The Lufthansa and Swiss shops are also part of the airlines’ Miles & More loyalty programme. Products can be bought from 7,500 award miles upwards, and every euro customers spend in-store earns them one award mile. It is not know whether the physical stores can also be used as drop-off/pick-up point for goods ordered online. 

Last but not least, Korean Air reportedly will feature a duty free shop onboard its A380′s, the first of which it will receive in mid-2011. The onboard stores are likely to carry a pared-down selection of the full onboard range. Korean Air’s A380 flights will also feature the full duty free trolley service.

Related articles: JetBlue opens temporary ‘Flyers Collection’ store in NYC

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