Costa Coffee plans new airport expansion into Central Asia market

Costa Coffee deepened its move into Central Asia and the Caucasus with a new airport site that turned travel infrastructure into the brand’s next test bed. The opening mattered less for store count than for strategy: an airport gives Costa immediate footfall, premium convenience spending, and a billboard position in front of travelers who may never have seen the chain on a city street.

The expansion built on a step-by-step regional play. Costa entered Georgia in November 2022 with a store at Tbilisi International Airport, then moved into Uzbekistan in July 2023 with a store in Tashkent, making Uzbekistan its 33rd global market at the time. Costa later widened its Georgian presence on June 3, 2025 through a franchise deal with Azerbaijan’s Sarda Group, a move that showed how an airport debut could spill into broader city-centre growth.

That same pattern has already taken shape in Azerbaijan. Costa Coffee Azerbaijan lists branches at GYD Airport T1 and T2, alongside sites at Socar Tower, Maiden Tower, Port Baku 2, Globus Center, Nargiz Mall, Daniz Mall and Ganjlik Mall in Baku. For a brand that has leaned heavily on franchising, the sequence suggests a deliberate route into new markets: land in a high-traffic travel hub first, then follow with urban real estate once the brand has recognition.

The airport angle is especially important because travel retail has become a serious coffee channel, not a side bet. Recent market research put the global airport food and beverage market at USD 23.8 billion in 2024, while the airport food and beverage concessions market reached USD 25.7 billion. Airport World also reported in 2025 that more than 60% of Millennial and Gen Z travelers associate airport quality with its food-and-beverage offering, which helps explain why coffee chains treat terminals as brand showcases as much as sales points.

Costa’s broader footprint shows how much it relies on flexible formats to keep growing. The company says it operates in 50 global markets, with more than 4,000 retail stores in 30 markets and about 16,000 “Proud to serve” placements. For a chain entering the Caucasus and Central Asia, that kind of licensing model makes an airport opening look less like a single cafe and more like a low-risk beachhead for the next phase of expansion.