Welcome to the Member News section. 

In Member News we’ll post news and updates on our Members, our association and our industry.
You’ll find ARRA’s Executive Director Updates, information on Board of Directors actions, and information and updates on the work of ARRA’s committees.  Special reports, articles and guidance and other information to help you and your business--and our industry—survive and succeed will be posted.

​You’re invited to submit information that can be shared with the Membership, such as news and developments from your company, store and restaurant openings, photos and videos, new and innovative concepts, services and technology, health/safety tips on operating and coping in a COVID-19 environment, best practices and other useful information.  These may be news articles, reports, press releases and relevant information on airport developments, policies or actions in your markets that affect ARRA Members. 

You may submit items and questions to info@arra-airports.com.

This section will also provide a forum for sharing and discussing important and emerging issues and trends affecting restaurant and retail concessionaires and airports.  We encourage you to use this site as a ‘bulletin board’ for sharing questions, ideas, solutions and best practices with other ARRA members.  Please submit any questions you would like to pose for ARRA and/or other ARRA members to respond to.

​We encourage you to become an active Member and participate in our frequent Membership meeting calls, weekly Wednesday COVID-19 Survival and Revival Forums, and other activities and events as we continue to build our association.  The success of any association, especially a new organization like ARRA facing such catastrophic events, depends on the active involvement, creativity and collaboration of its members.
 ARRA Digest Newsletter - 3/19/21
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UPDATE ON AMERICAN TRAVELERS + DISCUSSION WITH NATIONAL AIRPORT CONCESSIONAIRES - 4/13/2021
​​Watch the Video Here
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WHAT DOES RECOVERY LOOK LIKE IN THE AIRPORT CONCESSIONS BUSINESS? - 4/8/21
​Watch the Video Here
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FROM CRISIS TO OPPORTUNITY, TRAVEL ESSENTIALS TO SPECIALTY RETAIL - 4/7/21
Watch the Video Here

‘Forever Changed’: CEOs Are Dooming Business Travel — Maybe for Good - September 1, 2021
Business travel as we’ve known it is a thing of the past. From Pfizer Inc., Michelin and LG Electronics Inc. to HSBC Holdings Plc, Hershey Co., Invesco Ltd. and Deutsche Bank AG, businesses around the world are signaling that innovative new communications tools are making many pre-pandemic-era trips history. 
Take Akzo Nobel NV, Europe’s biggest paint maker, for instance. At its Amsterdam headquarters, Chief Executive Officer Thierry Vanlancker has spent the past year watching his manufacturing head, David Prinselaar, flap his arms, madly gesticulate and seemingly talk to himself while “visiting” 124 plants by directing staff with high-definition augmented-reality headgear on factory floors. A task that meant crisscrossing the globe in a plane before is now done in a fraction of the time — and with no jet lag. For Vanlancker, there’s no going back.

Read Full Article Here

Delta Variant batters airline bookings for Labor Day weekend - August 31, 2021
After a surge in bookings early this summer, U.S. airline passengers are planning fewer trips as the spread of the coronavirus Delta variant continues to discourage travel.
Spending for the Labor Day holiday was down 16% from 2019 as of Aug. 21, while bookings were off 15%, according to the Adobe Digital Economy Index. The weekend typically marks the end of stepped-up summer travel for U.S. carriers and demand often rises as families seek to squeeze in a last trip before school resumes. 

Read Full Article Here

AXiNsider Podcast Episode with Rob Wigington - April 20, 2021
Passenger counts are increasing, which feeds optimism, but they’re far from a level that can sustain business. Airports and operators have worked together well and that hopefully will continue as they start to collectively tackle longer-term challenges facing the concessions industry. Listen now as AXN’s Andy Tellijohn and Rob Wigington, executive director, Airport Restaurant & Retail Association, discuss this and much more. 

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE

Airport Concessions Struggle to Keep Up with Bigger Crowds - August 18, 2021
DENVER -- On a recent Monday morning, Necole Lowe, the recruitment head for Prospect Airport Services here, sat behind a table at Denver Airport's outdoor plaza, where a job fair was underway. 
Prospect, which contracts with Southwest, Delta and Frontier to provide wheelchair attendants and baggage handlers in Denver, has a bit more than 200 workers on the payroll. Full staffing in Denver would be at least 250 employees, Lowe said. 
In its effort to close that gap, the company has raised its lowest entry-level wage to $15.50 per hour from $14.50 per hour. Managerial pay has also been bumped up a dollar, to $19 per hour. 

Read Full Article Here

ARRA Presentation - Membership Meeting - 8 /16/21.pdf
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Administration/FAA Request to Airports/Industry to Address Unruly Passengers - 8/3/21
File Size: 256 kb
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Restaurant and Retail Association State of Industry - 7/20/21
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ARRA Facing Facts 3 - 6/1/21
File Size: 392 kb
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Biden Infrastructure Plan Highlights
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American Jobs Plan Overview and Infrastructure Package Update
File Size: 271 kb
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Airport and Concessions Relief Comparison - ARP v CRRSA
File Size: 177 kb
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AXN Passenger Experience Conference Highlights
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ARRA 2021 Agenda Presentation
ARRA 2021 Agenda - 3/8/21
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​ARRA 2020 Year in Review Report
ARRA 2020 Year in Review Report
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Contact your Legislators
Find your Representative here: https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative
Find your Senator here: https://www.senate.gov/senators/index.htm
ARRA Legislative Update - ACTION ALERT - 3/11/21
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ARRA Legislative Update - ACTION ALERT - 2/27/21
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ARRA Legislative Update - 2/12/21
File Size: 318 kb
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FAA Airport Rescue Grant Allocations by Airport - 6/23/21
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NEW - FAA FAQ Guidance for Airport Rescue Plan Act (ARRA) Airport Grants and Concessions MAG/Rent Relief - 6/16/21
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FAA FAQ Guidance on Coronavirus Response Grant Program - Airport Concessions Relief -2/12/21
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FAA Airport Covid Grant Allocations for Airports and Concessions Relief
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  • Airport Coronavirus Response Grant Program (ACRGP), created by the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act (CRRSAA)- P.L. 116-260, enacted December 27, 2020
ARRA Legislative Update - ACTION ALERT - 1/30/21
File Size: 338 kb
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Joint Airport-Concession Relief Letter to Hill Leaders - 1/30/21
File Size: 197 kb
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FAA FAQ Guidance Airport-Concessions COVID Relief - 1/19/21
File Size: 822 kb
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ARRA Legislative Update: Airport Concessions Relief in Final COVID-19 Relief Bill - 12/28/20
File Size: 227 kb
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ARRA Legislative Update - 12/21/20
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ARRA PRESS RELEASE - COVID GUIDELINES - 12/21/20
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ARRA Legislative Update - 12/15/20
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ARRA Legislative Update - 12/7/20
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House-Senate Leaders Target Contact List - 12/7/20
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ARRA Legislative Update - 11/9/20
File Size: 161 kb
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Draft Letter to Congressman
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Talking Points for Communication With Your Elected Officials
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Executive Director's Membership Update - 1/11/21
File Size: 340 kb
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Interim Final Rule PPP Second Draw Loans
File Size: 354 kb
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Executive Director's Membership Update - 12/17/20
File Size: 199 kb
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Executive Director's Membership Update - 11/16/20
File Size: 209 kb
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Executive Director's Membership Update - 7/10/20
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Executive Director's Membership Update - 05/31/20
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Executive Director’s Membership Update - 4/25/20
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Air Travel’s Quick Rebound Is Straining Agents, Airlines and Airports (Wall Street Journal/June 18)
Air travel has come roaring back. Not everyone was ready.
 
Customers are facing hourslong phone waits for assistance. Long lines have emerged as airlines, airports and the Transportation Security Administration scramble to hire staff and accommodate the influx of passengers.
 
Airline and airport executives say they anticipated that vaccines and easing restrictions would stoke renewed appetite for travel, but the speed and magnitude of the resurgence has exceeded their expectations. Even without the return of most business and international travel, the number of people passing through U.S. airports has surpassed two million on some days, a threshold last reached in March 2020. July 4—typically the peak of the summer travel season—is looming.
 
U.S. carriers are scheduled to fly more than 88 million seats in July, a 32% increase from April. That is still well short of 2019, but airlines are adding capacity much more quickly than they have in the past. Over the same four-month period in 2019, airlines increased the number of seats in the market by just 9% to meet summer demand, according to Cirium, an aviation-data provider.
 
Demand has quickly absorbed the extra seats. Planes are 83% full on average, and even more packed during heavily busy periods. Last year airlines offered steep discounts and deals. Now airfare is on the rise. The Labor Department reported last week that its airfare index rose 7% in May after gaining 10.2% in April. Carriers say leisure fares are on track to meet or exceed 2019 levels this summer.
 
The rapid increase has caused some growing pains.
 
U.S. airlines got $54 billion in government aid so they could keep paying their workers and avoid furloughs and layoffs that would make it more difficult for them to respond to rising demand when the time came. But carriers also encouraged many workers to retire early or take extended leaves of absence to stretch the aid as they faced a dire outlook last year.
 
When travel started to return this spring, American Airlines Group Inc. says it was inundated with calls from confused travelers planning to fly for the first time in a year or more. Many needed extra help to navigate new rules or cash in travel credits from canceled trips, so calls have been more complex and time-consuming, said Julie Rath, American’s vice president of customer experience and reservations. Disruptions like bad weather have sometimes exacerbated the problem, and some customers say they have waited hours.
 
About a quarter of the reservations staff at American Airlines Group Inc. had opted to retire or took unpaid time off last year, Ms. Rath said. American called back staff who had been on leave and started asking recent retirees if they would be interested in returning for summer.
 
“We knew it would come back and come back quickly,” Ms. Rath said. “But it’s even quicker than we expected.”
 
Delta Air Lines Inc. is hiring 1,300 permanent staffers to take customer calls to help replace workers who left last year, in addition to seeking temporary summer help and upgrading technology so customers can do more on their own, a spokesman said. Other airlines including Alaska Air Group are warning customers about long waits to have calls answered. Hawaiian Airlines said it is increasing staff at its call center.
 
Airlines and airports have advised passengers to arrive early at some understaffed airports to avoid long lines at security checkpoints. TSA screeners are working overtime and the agency is deploying them to airports around the country with the greatest need, a spokesman said. It has hired close to 3,600 new screening officers and now expects to reach its target of 6,000 new screeners by fall.
 
Workers like wheelchair pushers and baggage handlers are in short supply. Prospect Airport Services, which provides such workers at 34 airports, said the company has raised wages $2 an hour in some cities and offered bonuses of up to $1,000 for those who stay 90 days, said James Wajda, chief operating officer. But requests for wheelchairs are rising faster than the company can hire. He has gone out to push wheelchairs himself.
 
“We’re at a crisis point,” he said.
 
Restaurants and shops that operate in airports haven’t been able to hire quickly enough to fully reopen.
 
Some restaurants are offering signing bonuses and increasing base pay to lure workers back, but pay isn’t the only hangup, said Rob Wigington, executive director of the Airport Restaurant & Retail Association. Employees at airport bars, restaurants and shops must undergo background screening through TSA—a process that has slowed hiring, he said.
 
Trying to predict the timing and the speed of travel’s recovery was all but impossible, said Mookie Patel, chief business and finance officer at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.
 
Passengers have sometimes needed a refresher on travel basics. Mr. Patel said more are forgetting IDs, packing overweight bags and struggling in ways that have at times slowed things down.
 
Smaller airports in suddenly hot vacation destinations, like those near national parks and beaches, are facing record levels of air traffic this summer. They are having to find new places to park planes staying at the airport overnight, adding security screening lanes and taking other measures to accommodate the influx.
 
“It is a fortunate problem to have,” said Sean Briggs, business development manager at the airport in Boise, Idaho.
 
In Bozeman, Mont., airport officials expanded ticket counters and acquired new boarding bridges, but airlines kept announcing new flights, boosting capacity by 25% beyond what officials had expected at the start of the year, Airport Director Brian Sprenger said.
 
“We haven’t overflowed our parking lot yet. But we’re going to be really close in the next couple of weeks,” he said.

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ARRA in the News
Delaware North travel division celebrates openings, expansions - 11/30/20
​Houston airports suffering amid less holiday travel and COVID-19 - Click2Houston - 11/25/20
​As Americans avoid flying, airport shops face economic disaster - Fast Company - 11/25/20
​An Outlook on the 2020 Holiday Shopping Season and Beyond
Providing retail and F&B with support to survive in the COVID-19 era - Passenger Terminal Today - 9/20
©2023 Airport Restaurant & Retail Association
North Grove Corporate Park, 8120 Lehigh Ave, Suite 100, Morton Grove, IL 60053
Phone: (847) 324-7883 | info@arra-airports.com