WESTERN European airports are set to lose £527m worth of business formerly generated by duty-free during the year following abolition.
Research company Retail Intelligence estimates that total inter-European Union duty-free business at Western European airports was £1.3bn in 1998. The UK had a 26% share of this total.
Senior analyst Hilary Monk said: “As duty-free and tax-free concessions come to an end, a temporary period of disruption and turmoil is unavoidable.
“We tried to gauge roughly what sales volumes would do, but everything could change in six months. It’s a very fluid market.”