Taking flight
Airport bars present a growing opportunity - and also a few special problems. Michelle Perrett reports.
When you decide to get away and head to the sun, your first port of call is obviously the airport - and for many of us it's the bar. Thankfully the image of a rather dowdy airport lounge bar and expensive drinks with bad food is becoming a somewhat outdated experience for consumers.
The growth of airport travel and rise in economy airlines has seen a revolution in the whole travel market. The result has been an increase in the number of regional airports. This means that people who are travelling more for both business and pleasure have a knowledge of branded operations and will use that to make an informed choice of which bar to go to at the airport.
Jerry Robinson, managing director of Alpha Retail Catering (Europe), which runs the Bar 08 chain, believes this makes airports a real growth area for bar operators.
"What is happening now is that businessmen who used to get the train to Inverness now get the plane," he says.
"There is a lot more leisure travel too. Airports have invested a lot of money and now there is a lot more in the retail mix."
This has opened up a whole new sector for bar and restaurant operators, but it also presents a number of different challenges for those operating sites within the airport.
Alpha Retail argues that an airport bar can have the same brand values and quality as a pub on the high street. The Bar 08 chain has sites at a number of airports - Manchester, Birmingham, the new Peel Holdings Doncaster Robin Hood airport and shortly Eurotunnel, Turkey and Jersey. The new chain aims to emulate the contemporary style of popular high street venues, with sleek modern design, furnishings and lighting.
However, there are a number of property and design issues that make running a branded airport bar operation more complicated than running a branded operation on the high street.
"The problem with airports is you sign up for a certain number of years. It's a simple model - if we spend £1m on the site we have it for five years then that's it," says Jerry (pictured).
"Rent is worse than the high street as many are related to a percentage of turnover."
The venue's design has to be able to meet a range of needs and has to appeal to customers as diverse as couples and groups on hen weekends.
Bar 08 is a lunch and coffee venue during the day while by night it becomes a vibrant, blue-lit bar. To make full use of the space, the heart of the bar is an oval island servery allowing it to serve people through a 360º angle.
This allows it to serve customers with a range of offerings from coffee to champagne to croissants.
Another design problem is that each airport has different regulations and rules that operators have to abide by. Any designers or builders have to be approved as contractors on site because of security concerns.
There are also a lot of fire and security restrictions as well as a distinct lack of space for operators, especially in areas such as the kitchen.
"Fire regulations vary by airport. In some you would not be able to use a combination oven. That restricts what we can do at speed," says Jerry.
"We try to be creative about menus so it's exciting for the consumer but it has repetitive components. With beer we try to make sure that if one line runs out we can run on another one."
Another problem faced by Bar 08 is where to put the cellar. In its Manchester site the cellar is miles away from the venue and the lines are actually run under the floor of the airport. This obviously presents a number of technical issues such as product quality. But this does not deter Alpha Retail. Jerry says he believes there is an opportunity to roll out the chain while keeping the essential elements of the design.
"In Birmingham, Bar 08 is much more of a tourist terminal and we changed the offer so we have standard lager and not just premium.
"We evolve where we need to. The big difference in operation there is such a massive opportunity to drive the customer serve."
