Thursday, December 07, 2006

The fact that I have an affinity card with Park ‘N Fly means that it’s in my own self-interest to park there. It doesn’t take much to get free days, and free off-airport parking is something I can always use. It doesn’t mean I like Park ‘N Fly, though. At least, not at San Francisco International Airport.

For a while, I thought it was just bad timing, but after several years, I’ve come to accept that Park ‘N Fly sends its shuttles around to pick up arriving passengers about 50% less frequently than its competitors. I can see two or three shuttles from Park SFO, Anza, PCA, and several other parking lots before one Park ‘N Fly shows up. Coming home from Montreal the other day, I called for pickup (it was after midnight) while I was still in the terminal. “Three to five minutes,” the attendant told me. I got out to the curb and waited 15 minutes and called back. “Thirty seconds,” I was told this time. Five minutes later, the driver showed up.

I sat down and said nothing, but the other guy who’d been waiting was seething. He expressed whaqt I was thinking: “I’ve seen your competitors’ shuttles go by three or four times. What took you so long?” The driver gave a song and dance about a passenger on his last run who had lost his ticket—which tells the drive the row and slot where the passenger parked—so they had to drive around looking for his car.

That may explain the delay on Tuesday night. It doesn’t explain the 75 or 80 other times I’ve waited at the blue-and-white striped curb for Park ‘N Fly to finally get around to making a run.

Maybe it’s not worth the free points. Next time, it’s probably going to be Park SFO for me.

Posted by Shel in • Airports
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