Centerlines - June 2008 - (Page 24)

PASSENGER FOCUS caucuses saw some 3,000 rental car returns, “and obviously we don’t have 3,000 spaces for cars to get returned to,” Stiles said. To accommodate this, the airport carved out extra space from public parking area as well as a remote parking area on a service road at the south end of the airport. This required the rental car companies to bring in extra workers to shuttle cars back and forth, he added. In 2004, there were cases where it took the rental car agencies up to a week to ﬁnd their cars. Renters couldn’t ﬁnd room at the airport to return the vehicles, so they abandoned them anywhere—including the long-term parking garage, at the front curbs, and even downtown. The new parking situation created another challenge: making sure travelers knew where they were going. The airport created special wayﬁnding signs to direct travelers, and also had airport staff on-hand to direct trafﬁc. “Because of all the hard work we did with the signage and folks directing ways, we were able to get people to the parking spots and into the terminal so they didn’t have a chance to put their cars somewhere else,” Smith said. At the end of the month, the airport’s rental car revenue for January was 65 percent above the revenue for January 2007. Food and beverage revenue for the month of January was 17 percent higher over 2007, while retail revenue was 13 percent higher during the same period. Typically, January can be a tricky month in the Midwest in terms of weather. However, the airport did not experience any weather delays and, all in all, ﬂights seemed to go “pretty much on time,” Smith commented, which helped to make the event such a success for the airport. Many of the political candidates were not ﬂying commercially, and McCoy said the three ﬁxed base operators at Des Moines handled the trafﬁc well. There were no special airside measures to accommodate the trafﬁc, he added. To prepare travelers for the increased trafﬁc, Criss said the airport sent a press release at the end of December to local media, which stated that Jan. 4 and 5 would be extremely busy days at the airport. For those coming in from out of town, the airport placed printed materials in information packets that were assembled by a Des Moines downtown alliance group and distributed to visiting media. From a customer service standpoint, the airport had members of Clipped Wings, an organization of current and past cabin attendants from United Airlines, in the terminal during peak times to serve as roving information sources as well as pass out cookies to travelers, Criss said. The airport also had a magician on-hand to entertain any travelers that were delayed by long lines. Fortunately, said Criss, the magician was sent home early because trafﬁc in the airport was moving so smoothly. 24 CENTERLINES | JUNE 2008 http://www.ricondo.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Centerlines - June 2008

Centerlines - June 2008 Contents President’s Message Canadian Airports Associates’ Corner Guest Column On the Hill and On the Stump Policy Center Cover Story: Hotter Than Last July? Revenue Arena: Building Non-Aeronautical Revenue Environment: Wind Turbines at Boston Logan Passenger Focus: Des Moines Deals with the Iowa Caucuses Safety and Security: Inline Explosives Detection Systems Air Service Recruitment: Holding on to What You’ve Got On Management: Managing Capital Programs Now Underway Grand Opening Conference Previews and Reviews New Members Index of Advertisers/Advertiser.com Box Scores

Centerlines - June 2008

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