Food and Beverage operators ready to rebound at Perth Airport
26 May, 2021
With interstate borders stabilising and the roll out of the vaccine program across Australia well underway, domestic passenger numbers are rising at Perth Airport, which is creating a refreshed demand for our retail and food and beverage outlets.
With this surge, comes the potential for new jobs and job security in the retail and hospitality sectors for hundreds of workers.
Chief Commercial Officer Kate Holsgrove says while international passenger numbers continue to flatline, we are starting to see the domestic passenger numbers climb towards pre-Covid levels.
“Covid travel restrictions, while vital from a public health perspective, had a devastating impact on retail operators in our terminals,” Ms Holsgrove said.
“The vast majority were simply forced to shut down their outlets and wait for the storm to pass.
“The new controlled borders approach and the increase in the number of interstate flights has seen a number of outlets re-opening, expand trading hours and in some cases new operators opening their doors.
“At one point last year, only 20 of the 73 retail and food & beverage outlets in our terminals were open. Now we are back to 44 being open, with all but one outlet trading in our domestic terminals, with capacity steadily increasing week by week.
“This is great news for jobs and job security, and great news for the Western Australian economy.
“There is only one problem – good staff are incredibly hard to come by.
“When JobKeeper ended there was still a lot of uncertainty so our retail and food & beverage partners were forced to let a lot of staff go, but now that interstate borders are reopened and passenger numbers are climbing, the opening hours of stores can become more reliable.
“Other than enjoying a dynamic working environment at the airport, our retail, and food & beverage partners also offer flexible working hours due to the airport’s operating hours – so working in a café or bar does not necessarily mean saying goodbye to every Saturday. Many of the operators are also larger industry players both here in Australia and globally, so working for them at the airport here in Perth can open up a myriad of possibilities in the future.
“International retail is still significantly impacted by low passenger volumes with only seven of the 31 stores currently operating but thankfully on the domestic side, we are seeing massive opportunities ,” Ms Holsgrove continued.
For more information on jobs available at Perth Airport’s retail outlets click the below links:
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