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Adelaide Airport takes off: New flights, new fashion stores, new VIP lounge

Adelaide Airport is adding the final touches to a new VIP travellers lounge and trying to find more staff as outbound traveller numbers rise. Managing director Brenton Cox talks about pandemic recovery, world-beating Coopers Pale Ale sales and why Hungry Jack’s has left the building.

Jun 05, 2023, updated Aug 08, 2023
Picture: Bianca De Marchi/AAP

Picture: Bianca De Marchi/AAP

It was not until the state’s COVID mask mandate was officially dropped in 2022 that Cox felt the business shut down by pandemic-related border closures was “out of the woods”.

Flights began filling as South Australians embraced the opportunity to travel again with 10,000 people now working to operate Adelaide Airport each day, 200 of them Adelaide Airport Ltd staff working across eight offices at Adelaide and Parafield airports.

Numbers from the last financial quarter show almost two million passengers travelled through Adelaide Airport to March meaning a return to 93 per cent of pre-COVID volumes, but international travel is still lagging at 73 per cent.

“We are an expensive, long-lead destination and we scared people away during COVID,” Cox says as he discusses the plan to get the remaining 27 per cent back.

Cox says the business, valued at $3 billion and owned by four super funds including its largest shareholder UniSuper along with charity Perrin, is on the right flight path for growth.

It has managed to finish its $200 million terminal expansion of retail shops and international processing area on budget and on time, a thread of silver lining during COVID being that builders could work more efficiently in an empty airport.

The final touches are now being made on a new VIP international lounge for visitors arriving in South Australia who need somewhere to shower and re-group before heading off to business or government meetings.

But there is still a multitude of challenges with aircrew shortages, ground handling shortages, and struggles with aircraft parts and aircraft orders, as the aviation industry tries to catch up with an explosion in travel after years in the wilderness.

Years when income plunged for the business but the nation’s property boom kept its books reasonably balanced.

Adelaide Airport Ltd is now at full employment, according to Cox, with 40 vacancies in “every sort of job” from data analysis to technology experts and finance people, needed to be filled alongside its 200 staff.

“We effectively turned everything off, it’s much more fun turning everything back on I can tell you,” Cox says, “but the ride to recovery is incredibly competitive.”

There is not only high competition for staff, but also in winning back airlines that left Adelaide during the border closures that are now being wooed by other airports, destinations, states, and countries across the globe.

Adelaide’s international travel was boosted by Qatar Airways returning daily services from late January and more flights being offered by Singapore Airlines.

Batik Air Malaysia is also promising to start its first three non-stop Kuala Lumpur to Adelaide flights during July in time for the school holidays, Cox saying this will particularly make good connections into India where “traffic is booming”.

Cox says it is essential to get more varied flights online to even out figures showing that two-thirds of flights at Adelaide Airport are currently classified outbound.

He refers to work underway to get China Southern back as an example. The airline started operating in Adelaide in 2016 when three-quarters of people traveling between China and Adelaide were from Adelaide.

Fast forward two years and three-quarters of people travelling between China and Adelaide were from China – a statistic lost when the airline left Adelaide during border closures.

“I was in China not long ago myself and my head of aviation business development is there right now,” Cox says, discussions with the airline ongoing since it stopped flying to South Australia.

“We are constantly trying to coax them back”, Cox says, a tough gig when it may be more profitable to send that aircraft to London, New York, Paris, and “airlines play destinations off each other”.

Other work continues around the airport with a new Virgin Australia lounge opened along with the Southern Providore showcasing South Australian food, wine, culture and craft.

Adelaide Airport managing director Brenton Cox. Photo: Supplied

And Cox says the last few new retail spaces should soon be completed – flagging an announcement about more fashion brands moving into the terminal.

Running an airport requires constant tweaks Cox says, and recognising that “we are the front door and the back door” in showcasing South Australia.

It is why new retail outlets selling SA wine and food are important and why airport staff are constantly refreshing displays to reflect events like Gather Round or the Adelaide Festival to ensure there is a connection with passengers.

Cox says the airport is South Australian beer company Coopers’ highest selling site anywhere in the world for Pale Ale, with Penfolds also on site along with Menz and Callum Hann’s The Pantry.

And there are constant discussions around retail outlet designs that reflect the state or sites giving local talent exposure.

“What we would love is to be able to show some of the great Adelaide fashion designers and give them some exposure… we’re currently working out the best way to do that,” Cox says.

“And a Haigh’s store, they know we want them.”

But there are also competing business decisions related to giving customers what they want, hence the decision to replace Hungry Jack’s in the terminal with McDonald’s as part of the terminal redevelopment.

The change coming after one-on-one customer service surveys in the terminal showed an overwhelming demand for a Big Mac.

Adelaide Airport owns its terminal, runways and hangars, and buildings across its holdings including at export park, the purpose-built Australian Federal Police building and the head office of OZ Minerals – now tenanted by the mining company’s new owner, BHP.

It also built the $26 million purpose-built Mitsubishi head office with $2 million State Government support, where the company flies in dealers from around the country to learn about the latest vehicles arriving in Australia.

There are plans to create greater synergies between other businesses with a new logistics precinct, and work is underway to rejig terminal designs to install large new medical imaging scanning machines “that require double the space” to screen passengers and visitors.

The main challenge, however, is the need to find more staff after Cox says the industry went from being viewed as glamorous and stable to one that is vulnerable.

“What was beautiful at the moment that the mask mandate was removed, what we forgot was virtually everyone in the airport had a smile on their face,” he says, adding that this was helping the industry win back its appeal.

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