Belgian Sky Shops and Chacalli vie for Liege's contract

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Belgian Sky Shops and Chacalli-De Decker eye travel-retail at the ambitious regional airport's new passenger terminal

Liege airport's tender for travel-retail has attracted interest from the Belgium's dominant travel retailers, TRW can reveal. Retailer and wholesaler Chacalli-De Decker and leading national airport retailer Belgian Sky Shops (BSS) are set to battle it out for the right to operate a 200sq m (2,160sq ft) travel-retail outlet at the airport's new passenger terminal, due to be opened in February.

Airport authority Liège Airport/SAB hopes to increase its passenger traffic from 200,000 to 1m a year, and is constructing the new facility to attract a new carrier to the airport. Liège Airport/SAB sales executive Laurence Dumortier told TRW that the airport hopes to attract a respected travel retailer and that she was encouraged by the calibre of the two parties that have expressed interest so far.

Chacalli-De Decker, which operates retail at Rotterdam, Maastricht Aachen and Niederrhein airports, confirmed that it had already responded to the tender. ?We have visited the airport and met the commercial director to make our presentation,? Seabourne Group executive director with specific responsibility for Chacalli Mike Sheriff told TRW. ?And we are hopeful we will be able to work with them to make use of the new facility.?

Belgian Sky Shops said it too was hoping to add Liege to its portfolio of Belgian airport locations, which includes Brussels International and Charleroi airports. ?Like many regional airports Liege has ambitious plans for growth and as it is in our country we must examine the opportunity carefully,? Belgian Sky Shops commercial manager Marc Leemans told TRW.
The new terminal will also host about 500sq m (5,380sq ft) of landside commercial space, including a restaurant, hairdresser, newsstand and car rental firm.

Liège Airport/SAB is investing about Eu25m ($30.5m) in the project, and estimates that commercial areas would be ready to open on February 10.

For more details, see the story in DFNI July 1, out this week.