Airport Experience® News - ACDBE Issue 2025

DIRECTOR’S CHAIR

mitigate any impacts from tariffs that we might see, but none of that changes our thinking on the need for the project, the importance of it and the schedule at which we’re moving forward. WARD: Can you share a big picture plan on what you’ll do for concessions in the new concourses? GRIFFIN: I would say 90% of our post-security concessions program is being replaced. We

are working through with industry partners, including outside consultants and then experts on the design team to reimagine the entire concessions experience. Concessions for us is the usual – food, beverage and retail – but it’s also gaming. We’re working to design concessions where they’re not cannibalizing each other and that we’re maximizing the revenue and the customer experience. [We’re looking at] what local, iconic restaurants or retailers must be in a basically new airport, and how do the national brands that we all know and love fit in. What’s the right balance and blend? How do you co-locate and embed a concession almost into a hold room? The master concessionaires are driving a lot of the innovation. We’re talking to all of them – it’s actually easier to have those conversations when you’re not in the selection phase yet. Beginning late this year, we will start the contracting phase, and it will take about two years to bid out the entire program. For gaming specifically, only two airports in America really get to have gaming like we do. It’s us and Las Vegas – what should that look like? We’d like to evolve [our approach] – that’s going to be one of the more innovative and unique aspects of the new concourses. We realize we’re going to disrupt the existing operations as we being building the new concourses. We’ve been focused on beautifying the existing concourses because they need to continue to serve our passengers until we are out of them. We will ask for patience from our customers and our tenants and try and be a great partner to keep them all doing well through this program. Then in 2029, hopefully we can enjoy the fruits of these labors and relax for a bit. WARD: Are there other innovations or changes you’d like to highlight? GRIFFIN: There have been a lot of incidents in aviation this year and that adds to people’s anxiety levels around flying. We’re thinking about … innovative ways that we can reduce stress, whether it’s music or food or beverages or the type of seating. We’re building in adult changing rooms, places for parents to take care of their kids, we have the therapy dogs for stress relief… We’re trying to make a generational leap forward compared with what we have today. When we finish with this in 2029, we’re going to be on par with other airports and hopefully leading the pack. It’s all about the customer at the end of the day, and that is where we’re focusing our innovation and thinking on making the airport as great as it can be.

Below: RNO’s current concessions are performing well but will be put to the test when construction starts on the airport’s two new concourses.

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AX NEWS JUNE 2025