Duty-free stores temporarily closing at Hartsfield-Jackson, airport says
The Duty Free Americas stores at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport are closing after the contract expired, while an airport spokesperson said they are seeking another operator to step in.
The duty-free contract expired Friday, and the stores on international concourses E and F are closing, according to Hartsfield-Jackson.
The shops are large retail locations — a flagship store in the international atrium on Concourse F, and another at the center of Concourse E. Duty Free Americas for years held the contract as the duty-free operator at the Atlanta airport.
The closures affect 89 employees — including 15 supervisors, 38 salespeople and dozens of other workers — according to an Oct. 19 notification from Duty Free Americas to officials of a major layoff.
It wasn’t immediately clear what the status of the stores was Saturday. There was no answer at phone numbers listed for the Duty Free Americas stores at Hartsfield-Jackson.
The move highlights another challenge for duty-free retail amid international travel declines, and for the world’s busiest airport’s concessions offerings.
Hartsfield-Jackson initially said a week before the closing that a new duty-free operator, Dufry by Avolta, would take over and that the duty-free operation “may experience a very short closure to accommodate the change.”
But the airport later said it “is preparing to initiate a competitive procurement process through the City of Atlanta’s Department of Procurement to identify a long-term operator for the space.”
Hartsfield-Jackson also said it is working on an interim solution. On Friday evening, the last day of the Duty Free Americas contract, the airport said it was “currently in discussions with an existing concessionaire to establish temporary operations, anticipated to begin no later than Dec. 1, 2026.”
That could mean the duty-free locations would be closed during the busy Thanksgiving travel period.
“Throughout this transition, travelers will continue to have access to a wide variety of shopping and retail options across the Airport,” the airport said.
Duty Free Americas and Avolta did not respond to requests for comment.
Concessions leader search
It is unclear why the airport did not start a competitive procurement process before the duty-free contract ended. An airport spokesperson declined to answer a question on that.
The airport’s previous concessions senior director, Scott Knight, left the airport in November 2025 to take a job at Richmond International Airport.
Stepping into the role as interim concessions director was Josanne Kennedy, who worked at the city’s watershed department in external communications before applying for a job at the airport and becoming an assistant director in the concessions department, according to an interview she did for a July profile with industry publication Airport Experience News.
The airport has since advertised for the concessions director job. In a posting dated Sept. 30, it calls for someone to manage the concessions program at Hartsfield-Jackson.
Duty-free challenges
The duty-free operation has been troubled in the past.
In 2019, the airport cut the rent for Duty Free Americas, which at the time said it had lost $39 million over its seven-year contract at Hartsfield-Jackson.
The duty-free concessionaire told the airport its minimum rent of $15 million a year was not financially feasible, so the airport agreed to reduce it to $10.5 million and exercise a three-year lease extension option, with the Atlanta City Council approving the change.
As part of that contract extension, the Coach and Michael Kors stores from Duty Free Americas closed.
The airport manager at the time, John Selden, said the airport chose to extend the agreement and reduce the rent, rather than have the duty-free stores close for a year or more while the contract was rebid and lose millions in rent.
In 2019, Duty Free Americas Peachtree LLC managing member Simon Falic wrote in a letter to Selden that “the business never lived up to our expectations and resulted in multi-million dollars losses each year.”
Then in 2020, international travel plummeted during the COVID-19 pandemic, driving the temporary closure of the airport’s largest international concourse.
It took years to recover, and international travel has also been hit over the past year and a half by heightened immigration enforcement and geopolitical tensions, including the war in Iran.
International air travel to the U.S. was down 6.1% in the second quarter of this year compared with a year ago, while U.S. air travel to foreign destinations declined 2% year over year, according to the National Travel and Tourism Office.