Duty Free World ("DFW") is a U.S. based

duty free A duty-free shop (or store) is a retail outlet whose goods are exempt from the payment of certain local or national taxes and duties, on the requirement that the goods sold will be sold to travelers who will take them out of the country, wh ...

and travel retailer headquartered in Miami, Florida, specializing in inflight duty-free sales. The company sells primarily luxury products onboard aircraft. It operates from 12 locations around the world to service traveling passengers who purchase through its airline partners, which include Aeromexico,

LATAM Airlines LATAM Airlines Group S.A. is an airline holding company headquartered in Santiago, Chile. It is considered the largest airline company in Latin America with subsidiaries in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru. The company filed for Ch ...

and

United Airlines United Airlines, Inc. (commonly referred to as United), is a major American airline headquartered at the Willis Tower in Chicago, Illinois.

, as well as online. The company was established April 1995 by Mayra del Valle and is currently still owned by her and Leylani Cardoso. Duty Free World is the only female-owned company in the travel-retail industry. The company employs over 200 people around the world and processes over 1,068,545 transactions annually from traveling customers.

History

Beginnings

In 1995, a Cuban-American, Mayra del Valle mortgaged her home to pursue the American dream of owning a business when her employer, Inflight Duty Free Shops, of 15 years was sold to Duty Free International. DFW opened its doors having one airline contract with a Canadian charter airline,

Royal Aviation Royal Aviation was the parent of Canadian scheduled passenger and charter airline, Royal Airlines, which was based in Montreal Dorval Airport. The airline was acquired in 2001 by Canada 3000, which in turn went bankrupt in the months following th ...

. Having a small operation and limited resources, she set off to personally train

flight attendant A flight attendant, also known as steward/stewardess or air host/air hostess, is a member of the aircrew aboard commercial flights, many business jets and some government aircraft. Collectively called cabin crew, flight attendants are prima ...

s on the technique of selling inflight travel retail in seven locations throughout Canada. In 1999, her daughter, Leylani Cardoso joined the company.

Expansion

In 2001, the company's main competitor, World Duty Free, announced that it would be closing its inflight retail division, giving way for DFW's expansion. In 2002 DFW landed its first major carrier in North America,

Mexicana de Aviación Compañía Mexicana de Aviación, S.A. de C.V. (usually shortened to Mexicana de Aviación or simply Mexicana) was Mexico's oldest airline and one of the List of airlines by foundation date, oldest continuously single-branded airlines (after ...

. Recognizing that

s were the company's sales force, it launched the first ever flight attendant portal, allowing flight attendants to virtually view their sales activity from anywhere in the world. This new tool became a competitive edge. This won the company its first major US Airline contract in 2003 with US Airways and United Airlines later that same year. During this same period, the company began to see the need for specialized travel retail products; owner Leylani Cardoso launched her own line of handbags Bolzano Handbags, that “traveled well”. Today, the company designs and sells over 154,806 private label travel products annually onboard aircraft and online to traveling customers. The company obtained its first European contract with Spain's

Iberia Airlines Iberia (), legally incorporated as ''Iberia Líneas Aéreas de España, S.A. Operadora, Sociedad Unipersonal'', is the flag carrier airline of Spain. Founded in 1927 and based in Madrid, it operates an international network of services from i ...

in 2007. In 2009 DFW went on to obtain contracts with Aeromexico, having already landed a contract with

, this new acquisition meant it controlled all the inflight duty free in Mexico. This trend continued with the acquisition of

LATAM LATAM Airlines Group S.A. is an airline holding company headquartered in Santiago, Chile. It is considered the largest airline company in Latin America with subsidiaries in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru. The company filed for Ch ...

's onboard duty free business in 2013. In 2015 the company launched a travel retail website, www.dutyfreeonboard.com, extending the inflight duty free program further; passengers could preorder duty free products and have them delivered in the US or to their flight. This service was later expanded in 2016, allowing friends and family to surprise passengers with special gifts during their flight.

Locations

Duty Free World has offices in the following locations:

Asia-Pacific

* Guam * Guangzhou, China * Narita, Japan

North America

* Chicago, Illinois * Houston, Texas * Kearny, New Jersey * Los Angeles, California * Mexico City, Mexico * Miami, Florida * San Francisco, California * Sterling, Virginia

South America

* Asuncion, Paraguay * Guayaquil, Ecuador * Lima, Peru * Rio de Janeiro, Brazil * Santiago, Chile * São Paulo, Brazil

Awards and recognition

In 2009 DFW won SFMSDC Supplier of The Year and its COO, Leylani Cardoso was recognized as WIPP member of the year. In 2010 the company received an award from ''Duty Free News International'' for Best Inflight Travel Retail of the Year. In 2014 it won ''Duty Free News International''’s The Best Inflight Travel Retailer of The Year with its airline partner Aeromexico.

References

External links

* * {{Website, www.dutyfreeonboard.com
Duty Free World Website Development & Site Features
Duty-free shops Retail companies established in 1995