Ground Gains On-Airport Footing

<B> Ground Gains On-Airport Footing</B>
<I>Congestion And Competition Bring Concierges To The Curb</I>

By Lynn Woods



Increasing traffic congestion at airport curbs, combined with intensifying competition among the big players, has prompted the leaders in the limousine and sedan marketplace to broaden the airport concierge services they offer corporate customers. In traffic-clogged cities from Boston to Los Angeles, savvy travel managers are arranging to have not just their VIPs, but all travelers, greeted by limo company personnel.

"The ground transportation industry is becoming hotly competitive," said Runzheimer International senior consultant Rolfe Shellenberger. "Companies now are looking at added services, which in this industry translates into the personal touch."

At Los Angeles International, the hand-holding concierge has become standard for all corporate customers of Dav El Chauffeured Transportation Network. "Everyone's competing for the big-dollar traveler," said Joey Henriques, general manager of Dav El's Los Angeles office. "Airport concierges used to be an exclusive service that you paid for, but it's become standard operating procedure."

Henriques said the service entails having "a skycap ready at the curb to whisk away the passenger's bags." The passenger then is escorted to the airline club by a Dav El concierge, who makes sure all the traveler's needs are met up to the point of boarding the flight. Dav El recently increased its staff of concierges at LAX from five to 10.

Scott Solombrino, president of Chelsea, Mass.-based Dav El, said that many corporations are demanding the service in their requests for proposals. As a negotiated item, concierge service also is available at a number of other Dav El locations, including Boston, New York and San Francisco.

"We've broadened the use of airport concierges to people who need it. At some cities, you automatically are met by one of our reps," he said.

Last year, Carey International expanded its concierge service at all three New York airports, formerly available only to VIPs, to include "100 percent of flights," according to senior vice president of operations Devon Murphy. Carey employs 43 full-time greeters--distributed among JFK, LaGuardia and Newark--to meet clients at the gate, assist with luggage and communicate with drivers using Nextel wireless units so that cars are waiting at the nearest curbside area by the time customers are ready to exit the terminal.

The service has helped reduce the time it takes for the passenger to walk from the gate to the car to an average of seven minutes, Murphy said.

Carey, which also offers concierge service at Boston Logan, where 12 people are employed, is rolling out the program to Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and San Francisco, as well as to Jacksonville and West Palm Beach, Fla. It also is available to VIPs in other cities.

At London Heathrow, Carey by this fall plans to establish an airside greeter program that will meet travelers before they arrive at customs, so they "won't have to walk out and search for the Carey sign among 200 drivers," Murphy said.

At Newark International, Empire International, the limo and sedan network based in Norwood, N.J., began staffing Terminals B and C with a pool of six uniformed greeters in January. Deployed because of congestion caused by flight delays, the greeters are on call during times of high demand. Empire also offers concierge service to departing airline passengers, but this is limited to first-class passengers and carries an extra cost.

In the airports, where "everybody's in a suit, we dress our people in khakis and a sports blazer, with our name on the front and back, to enable customers to more easily identify us," said Empire director of sales Robert Van Ess.

Once upon a time, when an airport pickup was a lot simpler, drivers parked at the curb, then waited at the gate to meet the customer. First eliminated by airport authorities during the Gulf War as a security measure, curbside parking never made a reappearance at many facilities, which have found themselves deluged with traffic as the number of airline passengers soared.

To cut down on sedans and limos waiting two and three deep at the curb, some airport authorities require drivers to wait in a "holding pen" until customers identify themselves to a curb manager (or "starter," in industry parlance), who then contacts the driver.

In some cases, the parking area for sedans and limos is located at a distance from the terminal, further hampering drivers from making efficient pickups. The problem is most acute at large, older airports, such as JFK and LaGuardia, LAX, Logan and O'Hare, Solombrino said. Newer airports, including Denver, Nashville, Orlando and Pittsburgh, have "made better accommodations for the increase in the flow of chauffeured or self-driven passengers."

Getting to the curb not only has become more difficult, but also more expensive, as many airports are levying trip fees on drivers. Typically these fees range from $1 to $2 a trip, although they can be as high as $4 or $5 for parking the limo at the curb, said Ray Mundy, president of the Airport Ground Transportation Association, based in Knoxville, Tenn.

Some facilities rub salt into the wound by requiring drivers to pay the fee more than once--if, for example, they arrive at the curb before the customer has appeared and must circle around again. At Chicago O'Hare--cited as being one of the least user-friendly airports for limo drivers--drivers must purchase a book of 10 $2 tickets, each good for one trip to the curb and 20 minutes of waiting time. "Sometimes it takes 10 minutes to get a car out of the holding area," said Russell Cooke, president and COO of BostonCoach, the Everett, Mass.-based transportation network owned by Fidelity Investments.

"A lot of customers call from the plane. If they're not there when the car's waiting, the driver has to drive around again and pay again," Cooke said.

MassPort, which oversees the management of Logan International, has come up with a more equitable arrangement. Drivers never have to pay the $1.50 trip fee more than once per passenger, regardless of how many times they circle around. If customers arrive at the curb while the driver is circling, coodinators, posted in curbside booths from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m daily, take their names and contact the driver to expedite the pickup.

Limo companies also are required to pay a $75 one-time application fee and meet certain insurance and safety requirements. "We try not to make it difficult for limo companies to do business here," said John Faro, MassPort's manager of ground transportation. Indeed, the airport currently is served by 937 limo companies.

However, other airports levy much higher permit fees, further squeezing the profit margins of operators. Legislation is pending in Cleveland to allow the airport authority at Hopkins International Airport to replace the $500 annual fee levied on ground transportation companies with a $1,500 fee for limos for hire, $1,000 for corporate-owned limos and $5,000 for off-airport parking shuttles. "This is comparable to what other airports are paying," said airport control director Solomon Balfaj. "We're hoping to implement the new fees this year or next."

The upshot for corporate travelers surely will be higher rates as the limo companies pass along the cost.