With Pune airport getting international status, it’s time for the next step. Flemingo Duty Free Shops, the single largest duty-free shops chain in India, headquartered in UAE and Mumbai, has been awarded the Pune Airport duty free concession by the Airports Authority of India.

According to PK Thimmaiyya, vice-president (Operations) Flemingo, they would be ready to throw their “world class duty free boutique'' open to passengers at the Pune airport in 90 days’ time.

Confirming the contract, airport director G Chandramouli said he had received a letter from the headquarters in New Delhi to this effect on Friday. “We will be working out the details in the coming week. Right now, we are working round-the-clock to have one of the two new buildings ready by month-end. Once that is done, we will start with the allocation of space for the duty-free shop,” Chandramouli said. Space for the duty-free outlet would be first allotted in the new Departures building, he added. The Pune airport has 60 sq-m retail space available - 40 sq-m in Arrivals, 20 sq-m in Departures - for the purpose. “The space available is not very huge; that's a constraint we have to work with.

But we have worked at airports with even lesser area. Instead of a number of stores, we are looking at a large boutique area stocking some of the best brands. The emphasis will be on liquor, confectionary and perfumes,” said Thimmaiyya.

He added that at the moment, Pune does not seem to be very promising in terms of profit (Flemingo was incidentally the sole bidder for the contract) as the airport has an average of only two international flights a day.

“Also, last month there were only 3,000 international passengers - a 26 per cent drop from last year's. This is mainly because of the global meltdown. Nevertheless we believe in being bullish about the future and with Pune airport following in the footprints of other airports in modernisation of facilities, we believe we are at the right place,” he added. Flemingo also manages duty free shops directly at 11 other airports in the country like Lucknow, Jaipur, Kolkata, Trichy and Amritsar, while at Mumbai airport they have a joint venture. Their contract with the Delhi airport was over in May last year.