Toronto Pearson engineers secure supply chain

Pier F, a new international facility at Toronto Pearson International Airport, will officially open at the end of this month. In addition to marking the end of the road for Pearson’s unlamented Terminal 2, the new facility will have a more intense focus on travel retail and duty free offerings than the airport has ever seen before. As part of that focus, the airport has devised a unique, secure supply chain that will enable passengers traveling to the U.S. to purchase goods they could not otherwise under tightened security regulations.

In the aftermath of the discovery last August of an alleged plot to blow up transatlantic airliners in flight over the Atlantic, aviation authorities around the world imposed strict, often confusing restrictions on liquid and gel products in carry-on baggage. After much discussion, a certain degree of agreement was reached on guidelines that limit passengers to a small number of 100 ml bottles in a clear plastic bag.

From the point of view of airport retail and duty-free concessionaires around the world the impact of the new rules has been disastrous, as departing passengers can no longer purchase liquid or gel products in conventional configurations. Pearson is keen to increase non-aeronautical revenues, and airport planners have developed a secure supply chain to enable conventional sales to continue when Pier F opens.

“We’ve moved very quickly to mitigate the impact of the new regulations,” Howard Bohan, director of properties and concessions at Pearson, told GI. “We have a large store behind U.S. pre-clearance in Pier F. We can ship the goods there under full security, demonstrating to them at each stage that the goods are in compliance with all the regulations and letting them check everything out. This means that those passengers can carry that bottle of Scotch on board, rather than having to stow it in checked baggage and hope that it doesn’t get handled too roughly.”

The Pier F concessions are a showpiece for the airport, Bohan says. Pearson has devoted fully a quarter of available public space to the retail and duty-free offerings – more than anywhere else in the terminal. And the main duty-free store operated by Nuance, which handles all of Pearson’s duty-free concessions, will be the company’s showcase throughout North America.

Bohan says that the retail space will be in two main sections. There will be a main duty-free mall section, and a more open, boutique-style retail section. As passengers descend to the main level on escalators they will be deposited almost in the middle of the duty-free area, a plan reminiscent of the walkthrough concept that has caught on in many other international airports.

In addition to the Nuance duty-free mainstay, food and beverage concessions will be operated by The Compass Group and HMSHost while news, magazine and book outlets will be handled by Hachette Distribution Services (HDS) North America. Other concessions will be operated by a mix of smaller independents and franchisees.