Interview: How F&B is driving a customer experience transformation at Denver International Airport

Introduction: A few years ago, Denver International Airport was facing major challenges with a saturated concessions programme that could not adequately cater for rapid passenger growth. Senior Vice President, Concessions Pam Dechant tells The Moodie Davitt Report Senior Business Editor Mark Lane how an astonishing turnaround is being achieved, characterised by a locally led dining programme.

An extraordinary transformation of the commercial offer and customer experience at Denver International Airport is gathering pace, with a sparkling array of new food & beverage venues front and centre in its refreshed and much-changed concourses.

As a travel hub that was built just 30 years ago with an annual capacity set at 50 million passengers, commercial renewal has been crucial for the airport, which was the world’s sixth busiest last year, serving a record 80 million-plus passengers.

And the growth is far from complete. As the US aviation market continues to rocket, within the next few years annual passengers at Denver are expected to pass the 100 million mark and, by the time of the airport’s 50th anniversary in 2045, it is projected they could exceed 120 million.

These numbers have required a commercial rethink. With F&B and retail concessions saturated with passenger traffic, 18 new F&B venues began trading last year and another 26 will open by the end of 2025.

Denver International Airport Senior Vice President, Concessions Pam Dechant reveals that there are also plans for 36 more RFPs (requests for proposals) to be released in the next two years, including 20 more F&B venues and 16 retail stores.

She notes that responses are currently being reviewed for two casual-dining spaces covering more than 11,000sq ft combined, which will bring another step change in the F&B offer.

Dechant has been a central figure in devising the new strategy and masterplan to serve the airport’s fast accelerating usage across the past few years, working with her team alongside consultant Concessions Planning International (CPI) to get the transformation underway (the partners presented their strategy at The Trinity Forum in Vietnam last November).

“Denver Airport’s infrastructure layout was typical for a large hub airport,” says Dechant. “While it is very efficient for handling the movement of aircraft, it is not the optimal layout for maximising the commercial opportunity or, as importantly, creating a great customer experience for the passenger using the airport for their journeys.

“Changing that brought several key challenges. First, growing our infrastructure while accommodating our record-breaking traffic; managing multiple stakeholders in the environment with multiple projects going on; and finding additional available space to commercialise in an ecosystem in which it is in such high demand and scarce supply.”

The process of surmounting those challenges began with a commercial mapping of the entire airport. “In the beginning, alongside Concessions Planning International we studied millions of data points to understand what our busy hours look like in each concourse,” says Dechant. “We quickly learned we are drastically ‘under-concessioned’ on a square-foot basis. This analysis was used to launch our masterplan, our ‘roadmap for the future’.”

To tackle the lack of capacity, every square foot of commercial space and every F&B and retail contract was revisited and the optimal amount of square feet needed to support Denver Airport’s huge passenger growth identified.

“We took a deep dive into our current contracts and identified new opportunities in a category-by-category approach,” recalls Dechant. “We redefined the category allocations and mix within the constraints of the current contracts and tenures, identifying all areas that could be redefined and re-leased within the constraints of the existing infrastructure.”

This was done on a per-concourse basis. “Each of these concourses is a significant-sized airport,” she continues. “Each has its own identity and characteristics and each had its own constraints whether that was long contract tenures or infrastructure challenges.

“We identified that we could predict the ‘tipping point’ for each concourse, the point at which demand outstrips supply, and we identified that as the airport gets busier, that tipping point occurs more frequently and has a more critical impact.”

To address the challenges the airport was facing across retail and F&B, which was also negatively impacting customer experience, the concessions team realised that dining had to be prioritised, Dechant points out.

“The travel essentials/convenience offer was predominantly acting as a proxy for F&B, meaning that lack of capacity and congestion in the F&B areas was sending passengers to our convenience stores for a ‘distress’ food purchase,” she notes.

“This was great for our travel convenience operators but a poor experience for the passenger, as we weren’t giving them what they wanted, and a poor commercial outcome for us, as we were essentially down selling to these passengers.”

She says that paid-for and airline lounges, far from being competition, “were actually doing us a favour by taking passengers out of the concourses and away from the congested offer, helping to alleviate some of the pressures we were facing in peak times”.

“Taking this all into account we developed our Concessions Masterplan, a per-concourse roadmap and we made sure to incorporate the airport’s lounge development strategy into our concessions strategy to ensure we had a good understanding of their potential capacity and functionality in a future Denver Airport.”

A travel convenience strategy was developed, tailored to each concourse, with a clear understanding of the role each unit would play at each stage in the passenger journey. “We started to make sure the offer within these would be tailored to the customer at that point in the journey,” says Dechant.

Retail concessions were consolidated into fewer, larger and more efficient speciality retail units that still provide a level of interest and service to passengers while freeing up valuable space for F&B.

The F&B strategy was revisited to a sub-category level to ensure there was sufficient QSR, coffee and grab-and-go capacity as well as providing the opportunity, in the right locations, for longer dwell casual dining.

“We revisited the entire programme of small-format pop-ups and kiosks to determine how they can support us with both delivering more choice and interest to our customers while at the same time providing opportunities for local small and disadvantaged businesses,” adds Dechant.

Of the 44 new F&B concepts that have already opened or are scheduled to open this year, an impressive 26 are local Denver concepts, something Dechant expresses great pride in. She says: “We anticipate this trend will continue, complemented by a balance of national brands. We are currently only midway through our extensive redevelopment.

 “Over the next two years, we plan to release 36 RFPs, 20 of which are food & beverage and 13 of those will be released by the autumn this year.”

Looking ahead, she says: “As the airport continues to expand, we will introduce additional marketplaces, building on the success of the new layout. These enhancements will continue to set a new benchmark for sophistication in airport concession design.

“Designing the ultimate concession experience is inherently easier in newly built areas. However, a significant focus of our efforts remains on modernising the legacy sections of our concourses to align with the core planning principles outlined in the concessions masterplan.

“We are continually strategising ways to maximise the potential of the existing footprint. As these older locations naturally reach the end of their lifecycle, we will integrate our commercial principles into the design of new food & beverage concepts.”

Dechant also notes that an outdated, traditional concession model is still apparent in some of the older spaces at the airport. To address this, the aim is to incorporate elements that reflect modern trends and local identity, such as letting in more of Colorado’s natural sunlight through windows, creating a more intuitive passenger journey while enhancing sightlines.

All these changes are creating a win-win scenario for both passengers, the airport and its commercial partners in Dechant’s view, and a look at some the magnificent new F&B venues strongly backs this up.

With many space challenges overcome and much more commercial development to follow, Denver Airport’s place in the top echelon of travel hubs across the world looks secure as passenger volume surges to new heights. 

*This article first appeared in The Moodie Davitt March Magazine (page 40); click here to read.

Note: The Moodie Davitt Report publishes the FAB Newsletter, which features highlights of openings, events and campaigns from around the world of airport and travel dining.

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