I visit 3-5 times a year and have noticed an increase in lines and waiting for the shuttle bus to the car rental center. Have the recent increases in visitors put stress on the system? They have hired more guides and put up more fences, but the service is worse, and you’re packed like sardines in buses after long lines.
Yes, record visitation means more people arriving at, then leaving, the airport.
McCarran International served 47.4 million passengers in 2016, making it the second-busiest year in the airport’s history. Up 4.2% over 2015, it was only 400,000 passengers less than McCarran’s record-setting 47.8 million passengers in 2007. McCarran is the eight busiest airport in the U.S. and 26th busiest in the world.
So record numbers of people are queuing up to get to the rental-car center.
Also, these increasing numbers are all passing through the same size funnel. The very nature of consolidated rental-car facilities at airports helps to create the logjam. These centers are built for the many reasons—greater efficiencies for rental-car companies (such as onsite offices, fueling stations, car wash, prep, and light maintenance areas), more advantages for rental-car employees, improved traffic flow at the terminal area, and environmental benefits, to name a few.
Note that customer convenience isn’t on that list.
When rental car companies are located right at the airport, customers arrive at the counters in a steady stream, regulated by the times between arriving aircraft. But at consolidated facilities, customers arrive by the busload, inundating the rental counters. And returning buses often wait to fill up before heading back to the airport, creating longer wait times and more crowded buses.
A third reason that things are slower these days is a sizable road-improvement project going on south of the Airport Connector tunnel. Lane closures routinely delay the shuttle buses, especially in the evenings. When returning a car, you should definitely allow extra time to get to the airport; pickup schedules are also delayed as buses are slowed moving through the construction zone. This is expected to continue through July 2017.
In a perfect world, buses depart approximately every 5 minutes for the 7- to 12-minute commute to the facility. But these days, we understand that it can be a 20-minute commute with buses departing approximately every 10-15 minutes.
In the end, there’s one reason to take heart. In the Uber/Lyft era, the demand for rental cars is steadily decreasing. As of October 2016, more travelers are opting for ride-sharing services than taxis and car rentals combined. Rental-car industry revenues declined around 25% in 2016. So, it could be worse.
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Roy Furukawa
Apr-13-2017
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