Non-aeronautical revenue remains 9% below pre-pandemic levels. Strategic commercial partnerships can help close the gap.

By Tim Harms, CEO, Enliven, LLC

ACI World’s latest Airport Economics Report put a number on what many airport leaders already feel: non-aeronautical revenue is still roughly 9% below pre-pandemic levels. Passenger traffic has bounced back. In many markets, it has exceeded 2019 numbers. But the revenue that airports generate per passenger has not kept up.

That 9% gap is not going to close on its own. And the usual playbook may not be enough.

The Recovery Has a Revenue Problem

The headline numbers look encouraging. Passengers are back. But look closer and
the picture gets more complicated.

Business travel, historically a high-spend segment, remains uneven. Dwell times are harder to predict. Rideshare adoption continues to eat into parking revenue, which for many airports is the single largest non-aeronautical line item. Concessions operators are managing higher labor costs and tighter supply chains. Advertising dollars, while returning, are spread across more channels than ever.

Each of these categories is facing structural pressure, not a temporary dip. That distinction matters, because it means airports cannot simply wait for a full recovery. They need to create new value.

Innovation Helps, but It Won’t Get You to 9%

Many airports are making smart moves: digitally enabled retail, dynamic parking pricing, expanded premium lounges and concierge services. These are worthwhile investments. But individually, they tend to produce incremental gains.
To close a gap this size, airports need to think beyond optimizing existing revenue streams and look at where entirely new revenue can be created.

The Case for Airport-Wide Commercial Partnerships

Here is what many airports can miss.

Airports serve millions of passengers every year. They are, in effect, massive consumer ecosystems. Stadiums figured this out years ago, as did universities, hospital systems, and theme parks. In nearly every one of these environments, you will find an exclusive commercial partnership with a major brand like Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Keurig Dr Pepper, where the brand invests significant capital in exchange for visibility and consumer access across the property.

Airports are the only large-scale consumer environments that has not yet tapped into this model at the property level. That represents a significant, and largely unrecognized, source of new non-aeronautical revenue.

When structured well, these partnerships deliver more than a check. They bring investment into underutilized spaces. They fund amenities like 24-hour vending with custom buildouts. They replace fragmented marketing with coordinated, terminal-wide campaigns that actually improve the passenger experience. And they improve pricing for concessions operators.

The results speak for themselves. Airports with active commercial partnerships have seen year-over-year improvements in beverage sales per passenger ranging from 5% to over 30%, driven by coordinated activation between the airport, beverage company, and concessions tenants. More sales for the tenants means more rent for the airport. That is incremental non-aeronautical revenue on top of the partnership payments themselves.

These partnerships also generate recurring revenue directly to the airport, year over year, simply for the opportunity to be part of your passenger journey.

What a Best-in-Class Process Looks Like

Airports that capture the most value from these partnerships tend to share a few traits. They run a competitive, data-driven process that brings multiple beverage partners to the table. They align contract terms with long-term passenger growth. And they treat the partnership as a core part of their commercial strategy, not a side deal managed in isolation.

The 9% gap that ACI identified is real, and it is not going away without deliberate action. But for airports willing to rethink how they approach commercial revenue, the opportunity is substantial. The partnerships that other industries have used to generate millions in incremental revenue are available to airports too. The question is whether your airport is positioned to capture them.
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Tim Harms – Chief Executive Officer, Enliven
Tim Harms is the CEO of Enliven, LLC, the nation’s leading beverage deal negotiation consultancy. Learn more at enlivenllc.com.