Nonplussed traveler: Park it, pay it and never complain about it
I’m beginning to think upper management staffs at almost every business in this country spent more time watching SpongeBob SquarePants than they did studying when and if they ever went to college. Case in point – parking fees at transportation facilities. For the sake of brevity and my blood pressure I’ll limit this rant to airport parking – something most people can relate to.
At one time, believe it or not, parking at airports was free. A traveler could leave his or her car at a short walk to the terminal, be gone for however long a business trip or vacation would take and then return home and retrieve said vehicle. As traveling increased and it became necessary to build more parking spaces, most airports resorted to parking decks and initially charged a nominal (and affordable) fee to offset some of the costs the municipality had for construction of the structure. Makes sense, doesn’t it?.
But then the financial people took over and upon sniffing out a potential cash cow embedded in a 
captive audience, cried out, “What ho!!!!” and started charging much higher rates. What difference would it make, they figured, because most of the close-in parking was taken up by business people whose trip expenses are subsidized by their employers. The genie-asses at the parking authorities had tears in their eyes because of the cleverness of their plans. Then, no doubt at a Chinese Buffet written off by the local Airport Authority, somebody who was high on egg rolls came up with the idea of setting an area aside for “short-term” parking for those who were saying good-bye to family and friends or just didn’t have the ability to go through the hassle of remote parking and taking a shuttle to the terminal.
When this concept and its resultant horrendous charge-per-hour were proposed the phone lines to Masters & Johnson’s hot line probably short-circuited because of shear volume. Setting higher rates became the airport parking equivalent of lap dances and downloading porn. It was awesome! The rising and usury costs of terminal parking decks created the new industry of remote parking. These 
lots were rather large and situated within a mile or three of the terminal. Passengers would park their cars and board a shuttle that went directly to the terminal. It was efficient and more importantly…affordable. Unfortunately, the success of such ventures caught the attention of the airport authorities and at their semi-weekly revenue-enhancing lunch – usually held at an appropriately-owned underworld restaurant – the dollar hogs decided to feed from a bigger trough.
They decided to jack up fees for the right of the shuttles to park at the terminal and drop off and pick up people. (Just for laughs they also laid a huge surcharge on limousine companies as well, but that’s fodder for a future rant.) Suppose the remote parking owners are going to eat the charges? If you do then you’d damn well better surrender yourself to Dr. Phil.
Eventually remote parking charges started to reach parity with their “urban” neighbors. As the economy tightened traveling numbers declined exponentially. Furthermore, people began discovering creative ways to hold down transportation costs – particularly parking. They would often car-pool, catch a ride to the airport or even leave their cars at their offices and board a company shuttle (no doubt driven by a recently-furloughed vice president) to the terminal.
All of a sudden the “brain trust” of the airport authorities began to notice sharp declines in revenue. 
This no doubt cast a pall over the generally jovial lunches until one of the new wunderkinds with an MBA from Parson’s College in Iowa blurted out, “Let’s raise parking rates. If we jack them up even $2.00 per day we would make up the lost revenue within a year.” The collective tears of joy from around the table were enough to float the U.S.S. Nimitz. Drinks and toasts all around for the new guy. It should have become evident to anyone without a degree in anything that MBA is an acronym for “Must Be an Asshole.” As soon as the committee staggered back to their offices they made plans to put the new rates in place…starting the next day! After all, they’re charged with the heavy responsibility of looking out for the public trust, aren’t they?
Came the next quarter and Holy Jumping Jesus…revenue was down further…even with the new price increase. Figuring it must be computer error the Authority sold all their old computers – some of them were damn near a year old – to Sam Riddle’s Surplus Supply Syndicate and bought a batch of new state-of-the-art (for that week) computers for only 11 times more than the older ones were valued at. At the group’s next quarterly meeting, revenue was down even further!!!! So a recent MBA hire from the University of Phoenix suggested the rates be raised even further. The idea was so brilliant that the senior level of management fired the Parson’s College grad whom had made the same decision six months earlier but must have not thought all the elements through.
See where I’m going with this, People? History repeats itself several times annually. After a few years of this you have the public service version of the in-breeding of the royal family – Payroller 
Insanity. There is no cure for this all-too-common phenomenon. It seems to manifest itself inside government buildings but the oversight committees in charge of investigative findings can’t seem to find a clue.
The bottom line of this is that these municipal gatherings have the mentality of “we lose money on everything single thing we do…but we’re going to make it up on volume.” This mental lapse is easily seen in state governments as well; when revenue is down because of industries moving out because of the high cost of doing business in that state… the state raises taxes to make up the differences that are being lost (can anybody say “Michigan?”). My suggestion is this: charge an affordable rate for near-terminal parking. When the spaces invariably fill up on Monday mornings your revenue is made for the week…and then some. Same goes for you too, Mr. Remote Parking Guy. After the Near-termers make their money they should not wet their beak with your revenue. Rather, they should welcome the assistance.
When more passengers enter the terminal they are subjected to paying much-higher rates for the various food services found throughout the facility. It’s a win-win for everybody. The passengers are not going to bitch much about paying $4.00 for a Starbucks Coffee but they will about renting a little patch of ground for $20 per day just to store their vehicle. Multiplied on an annual basis that would be a minimum of $7,300 per year…and that’s with no in-and-out privileges. You don’t need to be a descendant of Euclid the great mathematician to run the numbers. Even a caveman could figure that out.
The ultimate revenue enhancer is even simpler than that mentioned above. Get rid of the entire airport parking board and use their astronomical salaries and benefits to offset the costs of parking. Now THAT’S a win-win solution.
Al once parked in Toledo for a flight out of Detroit just to save $2. His column appears here every Monday.
Related posts:
