Aspire Executive Lounge’s global head David Collyer believes a hospitality focus is key to meeting booming demand for airport lounges as passengers look to experience and premium travel, writes Graham Dunn
Increasing premium travel and consumer trends prioritising experience are among factors driving strong demand in the airport lounge sector, evident in the rapid growth post-pandemic growth at Swissport’s hospitality division Aspire Executive Lounges.
Alongside its primary Aspire brand, the Swissport division also operates various joint venture lounges – such as those for global airline groupings Oneworld and Star Alliance – as well the UK-based No1 Lounges brand. As of the end of last year, the Swissport unit operated 93 airport lounges around the world.
“We have grown 80% in the last two years, 30% year on year last year. The demand for lounges is massive at the moment,” said Aspire Executive Lounges Global Senior Vice President, David Collyer, noting this growth is driven by the boom in premium travel and consumer demand for lounges. “It is not a market that is slowing down any time soon.”
Aspire most recently opened a lounge in February at Verona Airport in Italy. It is set to open further lounges in Stockholm, Geneva, Calgary, Manchester and Vilnius this year, meaning Swissport has a confirmed network of 106 lounges.
“The joy of being part of Swissport and the airline relationships that brings, [is that] we pretty much look after every airline somewhere in a lounge around the world,” Collyer said.
Opportunity knocks
“My background is hospitality and luxury hotels. When I got the call from Swissport, I looked at the market and thought wow, there’s a real opportunity here,” Collyer continued.
He believes its hospitality focus is a key differentiator for Aspire and is crucial, particularly to meet heightened demand for premium travel.
“That [focus] is contributing significantly to our growth and that aligns very well with what is going on in the airline industry,” he said, pointing to the “battle for experience in the skies” among premium carriers. “That experience now is needed on the ground,” Collyer added.
Aspire is also a consumer-facing business and Collyer sees strong demand coming directly from this segment as well as passengers prioritising experience when they travel.
“Because of the demand, both from consumer and airline, airports are having to make space and the commercial model in the terminal is changing rapidly,” he added. “Retail is out and experience is in, and that is where airports are now really focused on driving experience.”
That is evident in strong demand for food and beverage experiences within the airport, but also driving stronger lounge demand. “There is quite a strong volume of people who …. want a quiet space away from the melee in the terminal that is well designed, well catered, has good service and is akin to a four- or five- star hotel,” Collyer said.
“The really important things are a sense of hospitality and service, really good food and beverage and a well-designed space,” he added. “Those three drivers, depending on which segment you are, dials up and down,” varying from the “frictionless flyers” looking at how efficiently they can get in and out, to the requirements of the experiences enthusiast and the sanctuary seekers.
To meet this varying demand, Aspire launched a three-tiered lounge approach at Newcastle airport in 2024.
“Trying to mix all those people in one place at the same time and keep them happy is impossible. You’ve got to segment. People want different things,” Collyer said. “Designing for those needs is a challenge, but we seem to have cracked it because when we built that prototype in Newcastle two years ago, we weren’t sure if it was going to work or not. And it has been phenomenally successful.
“Now every airport that we work with wants a three-tier strategy. We treat it as a menu and you can have our lifestyle product, our upscale product, our luxury product, or a mix of 100 seats of one and 50 seats of another.”
Collyer also highlighted the role of data in helping to drive lounge design. “We invest a lot of money in guest insight and understanding the behavioural attitude needs of the key segments we have in our lounges,” he said.
For example, he pointed to the percentage of check-in baggage an airline has. “When we design a lounge now, less and less people are checking in bags – that’s having an impact in terms of design and space,” Collyer said. “So designing lounges with airports has become an art and we work with six of the best hotel designers around the globe to design our lounges.”
Aspire has also teamed with design university Central Saint Martins on a challenge for new product designers to create “the world’s comfiest airport lounge chair”. Final presentations will take place in May, when Aspire will select a winning design with the ambition of taking it forward into global production.
Service culture
In order to meet expectations, Collyer highlighted the importance of embracing a hospitality service culture. “Our guests, no matter what their method of access, be it airline or other, they expect us to match a four- or five-star hotel,” he said.
To that end making the job attractive to staff, a challenge across airports since the pandemic, is crucial.
“I don’t think it used to be [attractive]. Who wants to get up at three in the morning? There’s your first challenge,” he said, but notes the establishment of the Aspire Academy to help boost career development.
“We developed a programme that our staff are trained to… [but] equally can take various courses within three to five years to become qualified at the same standard as a hotel general manager,” he said. “The hospitality industry is still one of the best industries in the world, because you can start in the kitchen and end as the CEO.”
So what is next for Aspire? Collyer said this year will bring a “step change” on food and beverage.
“We have soft launched it in a lounge in Europe – and this year we are rolling it out globally and I am really excited about it,” he said.
“It is not just about the food, it is about the service delivery, it’s about the uniform, the table settings, the whole piece. That has been developed by leading hospitality specialists who work with all the five-star chains. That’s the biggest advance for us this year.”
