Sign of the times

by Martin Moodie |
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Martin Moodie

Martin Moodie is the Founder & Chairman of The Moodie Report.

Orlando alpha_Small

It’s good to see first-hand evidence of our industry’s highly efficient lobby.

Travelling through Orlando Airport last week en route to London, I visited the Alpha duty and tax free store, a nice, tidy, accessible outlet.

The constraints that US airport retailers have to face, though, were plain to see. There’s the painful process of gate delivery, of course. And passengers who were taking domestic flights to connect to international flights out of other US airports were not allowed to buy duty free (a very decisive woman at the shop entry made sure they didn’t even enter the store) – even for non-LAGs items such as confectionery.

The latter restriction is presumably because there is no gate delivery for US domestic flights.

Those are the rules and you have to play by them, I guess.

But you can also do your best to combat the ever-changing and complex legislative tapestry of our industry. So it was good to see the retailer displaying a prominent notice (pictured) announcing that passengers departing Orlando (on international flights) could now transfer within European airports and retain their LAGs purchases.

Good news_Small

A simple, effective message, appropriately headed ‘Good news’. For indeed it is. Well done to the IAADFS and ETRC on both sides of the Atlantic for their prolonged, ‘hard yards’ lobbying work and to the retailer in question (Alpha) for reacting so swiftly with such strong but simple consumer communication.