Airport Experience® News - Retail & Amenities Issue 2023

Right: Ontario International Airport sees about 3,400 visitors monthly using the airport’s guest pass program.

services such as AirPAWS [therapy dog program]. It allows guests who have never flown out of JohnWayne Airport a chance to visit before traveling and prepare for their travel experience.” Allowing non-ticketed visitors into gate areas also increases the airport’s accessibility features, say airport executives. “The SEA Visitor Pass program “allows individuals to provide accessibility and unaccompanied minor support for those who don’t qualify for airline programs,” says Chris Guizlo, aviation communications and marketing program manager for SEA. “Traveling through an airport can be a challenging experience for individuals with hidden disabilities like autism,” adds Servin of JWA. “To ease some of the stress associated with airport travel, our Helping Hands team provides personalized travel assistance, guiding families through the arrival, check-in, security, and boarding processes.”

“It’s all about the airport experience,” adds Lambert of ONT+’s outreach to its residents. “Ontario International has an extremely close bond with our community, more than ever since our return to local ownership in 2016. ONT+ is the kind of community and customer-service amenity that strengthens, even further, that relationship. It also allows us to share our post-security amenities — our great restaurants and shops – with our non-traveling public.”

Revenue Opportunity Though most of the active programs did not yet have data on non-ticketed revenue impact, signs are positive. “We’ve seen some incremental impact on concessions revenue,” says Wimbley of SEA’s additional concessions customers. “Anecdotally, we’re definitely seeing ONT+ customers using our restaurants and shops,” adds Lambert. Even with minimal impact on revenue, airport executives say guest pass options are worthwhile. “The program is well loved and was missed while it was unavailable due to COVID-19 pandemic,” says Guizlo of SEA Visitor Pass. “It was highly requested to be brought back with expanded hours which we recently did this year to make it more available to early and late flights.” ONT+’s program is “very popular,” adds Lambert. ONT currently sees approximately 3,400 monthly visitors using the guest pass program, “without any heavy marketing to date,” adds Lambert. “Part of that is strategic. We want to make sure we don’t overwhelm our security checkpoints,” he says. “But through our collaboration with TSA, we fully anticipate the monthly numbers to grow.”

Left: Meeters and greeters are welcome if they have a guest pass, as are those accompanying a departing passengers (John Wayne Airport pictured).

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