Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths receives The Trinity Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Airport Commercial Revenues Sector

HONG KONG, CHINA/UAE. Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths was tonight named as the recipient of The Trinity Award 2023 for Outstanding Contribution to the Airport Commercial Revenues Sector.

The award was revealed during a glittering Gala Dinner at the Rosewood Hotel, Hong Kong, which closed The Trinity Forum hosted (along with the Gala Dinner) by Hong Kong International Airport.

“This year’s Trinity Award recipient has been pivotal to the rise and rise of Dubai as an aviation force, as a tourism force, and as an economic force,” said The Moodie Davitt Report Founder & Chairman Martin Moodie.

“Paul Griffiths – along with the emirate’s far-sighted leadership – has driven Dubai International Airport’s (DXB) emergence as the world’s leading international airport in passenger terms for nine consecutive years and driven its positioning among the airport world’s elite in terms of quality of service, seamlessness of journey and consumer-first thinking.

“Paul is a champion and a facilitator of coordination between airport stakeholders and agencies and a proponent of digital innovation and solutions, including automated processes across the airport journey.

“He was instrumental in the successful completion and launch of DXB’s magnificent Terminal 3 in 2008; and the opening and readiness of Dubai’s second airport, Dubai World Central (DWC) in 2010, and DXB’s Concourse A in 2013 – the world’s first purpose-build A380 facility.”

Moodie continued: “Paul has led DXB’s spectacular recovery from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, with DXB’s most recent 2023 traffic forecast at 98% of 2019 levels – the result of excellent stakeholder management, business coordination, and service delivery priorities. He guided Dubai Airports through the worst crisis in modern aviation history, helping DXB to become among the first international airports to welcome back travellers and return to 100% capacity.

“Importantly from a Trinity perspective, during the pandemic Paul supported business continuity programmes at DXB and DWC, including being the first airport to announce unconditional support for all aviation and commercial partners at the beginning of the crisis. This ensured business continuity and the successful recommencement of 100% of all concessions when travel resumed.”

Calling Griffiths to stage, Moodie said: “Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in applauding a passionate champion of airport commercial partnerships, of consumer needs and desires, and of making the aviation, travel and travel retail world a better place.”

Griffiths said he was proud and humbled to receive the award. He praised The Trinity Forum as “the United Nations of our industry” and called on travel retail sector stakeholders to unite in order to maximise business potential and serve industry guests better to ensure a bright future for all stakeholders and travelling consumers.

“Through so much difficulty during COVID-19 what the world needs now is peace and it needs unity,” he said. “And it certainly needs us all to work together as one cohesive force for good. That’s good for the industry and it’s good for the traveller – the customer, as I always say – and it’s certainly good for the whole world.

“This is a great industry, with some fantastic people in it and I’m extremely proud to receive this award and somewhat humbled and unexpected by it.

“Thank you, Martin. Thank you, Dermot. And thank you everyone else for contributing so much to this great industry, which is a force for social change. It’s a force for good in the world. And let’s make sure that we just continue that mantra for eternity. Let’s make sure that this industry continues to do the good it’s done for so many years, for as long as it can possibly can.”