Titan Air Lands First Airport Partnership
Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
When Titan hired Mike Riley and Sam Hart last April, we figured it wouldn’t take too long before the company’s new division, Titan Air, would be out there vying and winning airport advertising accounts.
Riley, now Titan Air’s senior vice-president and general manager, and Hart, Titan Air’s vice-president business development and airport relations, had in their recent past both been highly instrumental in building Clear Channel Airports’ success.
Now Titan Air has been awarded a five-year contract (with a second five-year option) for the exclusive right to sell advertising in the busy Westchester County Airport – the first win for Titan Air which won the competitive bid for the new contract, beginning Aug. 1, 2012. The past contract had been held by Clear Channel Airports.
The advertising agreement covers all advertising within the airport, including state–of-the-art digital displays, which will provide news, weather and travel information as well as advertising. Titan will also be marketing new media in the airport, including a Digital Visitor Information Center that, in a partner association, will allow passengers to reserve hotels, rent cars and make dinner reservations.
Other new initiatives that Titan will bring to the airport include work spaces designed to provide comfortable seating for passengers and charging stations for multiple electronic devices. These stations will feature high impact advertising and will be distributed throughout the airport.
There will also be new 70” LCD screens in the holding and baggage areas, as well as a repackaging of static advertising in the airport, with 4’ x 12’ banners and and 3’ x 8’ posters.
Titan will use its full sales team to sell local and national advertising into the airport. Local sales and marketing will be run from Titan’s New York headquarters, as well as from a new office in Westchester County.
“There’s going to be a big change in the look of the airport,” says Don Allman, Titan’s president and CEO, whom we interviewed Tuesday along with Hart and David Etherington, Titan’s senior vice-president and worldwide marketing director.
“Titan’s proposition is centered around the ‘People in Transit’ philosophy, and Airports are a logical fit within our core competency,” says Allman. “We have the best team in place to make a great success of this partnership.”
“Westchester County Airport delivers high-end consumers and the opportunity for high-end, high-impact media,” said Riley in a prepared statement. “We’re looking forward to growing revenue for the Airport and delivering new ways of reaching consumers for our advertising partners.”
We aren’t surprised that, with Riley and Hart on board, Titan Air will start bidding on all the various airport contracts as they come up for bids. We know that it has also bid on the O’Hare-Midway RFP – with the contract winner as yet unannounced. Among other contracts with RFP bids underway or soon due include San Francisco and, we believe, New Jersey.
Westchester County Airport is served by seven airlines to 15 destinations in the United States. The airport has approximately 1.5 million passenger arrival and departures per year.
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