Airport Experience® News - Conference Issue 2026

ONE-ON-ONE

Left, Above: The acquisition of Delaware North’s THS division brings some high-profile brands into the Areas USA portfolio. Pictured are Annies and Salt Lick BBQ at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.

WARD: With the acquisition, Areas USA added a large F&B portfolio but also some retail, which hasn’t been in your wheelhouse. Do you anticipate growing the retail side of the business further? BERNAL: It’s not really new for us because we do operate some retail in Atlanta, and then we have a lot of convenience retail in our travel plaza motorway business. I visited Austin [ Austin Bergstrom International Airport ] and MSP [ Minneapolis-St. Paul International

Airport ] in my January travels, and we do a really good job with retail, not just the convenience retail side, but on the specialty retail side, where we have some fantastic stores. We see growing that business. Now, with the talent that we have, we’ll look [at retail RFPs] to see if it makes sense. Competition is tough, of course. But I think the retail was a nice add-on to our company. We’re doing it today, but now we can really take it to the next level.

WARD: More generally, can you talk about your approach to RFPs? Will that shift now that Areas USA is a much larger company? BERNAL: It really doesn’t change anything, quite honestly. We were competing before with the big guys, and we were winning our fair share of the business. I think the one change is that we’ll probably look a little deeper at the retail RFPs when they come out. But we’re not changing our approach. With any given RFP, our team analyzes it [to ascertain], can we compete? Do we think we have the right programming to present to a prospective airport that puts us in a competitive place to bid? Is it a level playing field in terms of the RFP process, right? Do we think that it’ll be a fair process. Do we think we’ll get a return on our investment? Whether you’re big or small, you have to go through the same analysis of the business. We’ve now significantly expanded our branded concept portfolio with new brands that we didn’t have relationships with previously. We now have those to offer prospective new clients and existing clients. The process doesn’t change, but we definitely have a few more tools in the toolbox. Left: Areas USA was traditionally a restaurant-focused operator and will remain so, but the addition of Delaware North THS gives it a solid foothold in retail as well. Pictured is the Adventure North specialty retail store at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

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AX NEWS MARCH 2026