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Mumbai Airport To Soon Offer Online Shopping Of Duty Free Goods

Mumbai International Airport T2 launches its own shopping app



A worker walks through  Terminal 2 of the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg)
A worker walks through Terminal 2 of the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg)

GVK Group-run Mumbai International Airport (MIAL), which nets almost 55 percent of its revenue from non-aero businesses, will soon be expanding its e-commerce application ‘Mumbai T2 App’ to facilitate online booking of retail products for passengers.

Joining its global peers, MIAL launched the app last November and the airport’s chief commercial officer Sanjay Khanna said today that the airport “will be expanding our offerings through the app to include online booking of goods from the over 150 retail shops in the sprawling airport as part of the second phase.” But Khanna refused to speak about the commercial side of the app, saying it’s still early days.

The Mumbai T2 App features augmented reality, which provides passengers with information on nearby facilities as they walk through the terminal, push notifications, airport maps and retail guides including price comparisons at its duty free shops versus other airports. The new online offering will include retail shopping, duty-free booking in advance (the goods can be picked up at the airport on the day of travel after presenting travel details as existing rules does not allow delivery of goods outside the airport), said Khanna, who was talking to reporters on the sidelines of an industry summit on airport retailing.

Asked about how the customer reaction to the app has been, he said already over 1 lakh people have downloaded it. But he parried a question on the number of shoppers using the app.

By selecting the flight on the app, a passenger can opt in to receive push notifications relating to her flight. A combination of the indoor atlas and technologies provides the platform for the magnetically modelled indoor maps. Kim Gary, head of retail strategy at the Heathrow airport in London, told PTI that the airport app brings under 1 percent of the total 450 million pounds netted from the non-aero business last year, while an official of the Changi airport in Singapore said the app helps in generating around 3 percent of total retail sales online now.