Before you open a business at the airport, consider whether a 30-minute commute from the parking lot
to your storefront works for you.
Also consider whether you are willing to let predicaments like a flock of birds crashing into the nose of a jetliner determine the day鈥檚 sales tally. And maybe most important, if you鈥檙e allergic to bureaucracy, consider becoming a skycap instead of opening a boutique or restaurant.
鈥淕etting into the airport can be pretty difficult,鈥� said Ramon Lo, publisher of , an industry magazine. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 just come in off the street and say, 鈥楬ey, I want to try my hand at selling in the airport. Let鈥檚 do it.鈥� You have to go through a lot of layers. Airports are quasi-governmental.鈥�
Regardless, they are becoming magnets for small businesses willing to crack a complicated set of codes. The benefits are obvious, according to entrepreneurs like Keith Montoya, a partner in , an offshoot of a popular Denver hot dog spot that recently opened at , the nation鈥檚 sixth-busiest airport (in 2016, 58 million passengers flew in and out of Denver).
鈥淭here鈥檚 money out there, which is why I did it, to be quite honest,鈥� Mr. Montoya said. 鈥淵ou have hundreds of thousands of people walking by, and if a flight is delayed you鈥檝e got a pretty captive audience. And the return is quick.鈥�
For Mr. Montoya and almost everyone else whose brand lacks the national prominence of a or a
, though, getting to those quick returns requires patience 鈥� and research.
Mr. Montoya navigated his way into the airport partly through
; he is Mexican-American, and the part of the program he zeroed in on, known as A.C.D.B.E., helps minorities and women enter the aviation industry. He was also helped by a program introduced by Denver International in 2011 to help small businesses get a foothold.
