
Airport Car Rentals: The Next $10 Billion Industry Ready For Disruption - OJKoukaz
http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/24/airport-car-rentals-please-god-someone-make-them-not-suck/
======
Anechoic
_Frequent travelers and members of rewards programs aren’t treated that
differently_

Um, actually we are. With Avis First (free to join) or Hertz Gold (last I knew
there was a fee, but that may have changed), I take a shuttlebus to the rental
car lot (or at the smaller airports, walk from the gate to the rental lot),
look for my name on the message board, walk over to my car, get in, drive to
the gate, show the attendant my license and I'm gone. In the really small
airports (FSD or FWA for instance) it's literally 5 minutes from gate to road.

WRT Flightcar, that has absolultely no appeal to me as a car owner parking at
an airport, or as a car renter. As a car owner, when I get back from a trip, I
_really_ want my car to be there so I can get home, I don't want to have to
deal with my car not being there because the renter got stuck in traffic or
had a change in plans.

As a renter (for both business and pleasure) I want to be able to have some
flexibility in my rentals - if I want to extend my rental, I just visit the
website and extend the rental. Would I be able to do that if the guy who's car
I'm renting needs it back at a certain time? Also, how do I know that the car
I'd be renting would be in decent running order?

I think that airport car rentals could use some disruption (for example more
flexibility in refueling is nice, but I don't see that Silvercar really solves
that problem), but I don't see these businesses doing it. Of course YMMV.

~~~
whatusername
The petrol (gas) refuel thing is the only thing that feels all that different
from Hertz Gold (I think it's sometimes a 1-time fee -- I got mine free a few
years ago).

My experience at CBR last week. Walk off the plane. Walk up to the Hertz
counter. Wait 20 seconds for the 1 other person in the Gold line. Flash my
license. Given my keys and the direction to the lot. Walk to the lot. Drive
off. Would have been under 5 minutes from when I walked off the plane.

------
jacquesm
Why would I risk my 2 decades+ no claim discount on someone else renting my
car?

Why would I let someone who I don't know drive the car I take good care of,
possibly use it for illegal purposes or deal with the aftermath of fines and
so on?

Really, that's a pretty bad idea.

~~~
rsheridan6
I agree on the second point, but then again, I'd never rent my house out with
Airbnb either, and apparently they've done well. Different people have
different tolerances for risk.

~~~
antiterra
I think a key difference with Airbnb is that you have to be pretty clever to
run a red light or over a pedestrian with someone's condo.

~~~
jrockway
But less clever to turn it in to a meth lab.

------
PaulHoule
People around SV might get the wrong idea of how bad airport car rentals are
because the car rental center at SFO is probably the worst in the world.

I remember coming in on a delayed flight and riding the train out to the
rental center, waiting in line half an hour, then finding the car parked in
the space I was sent to was entirely different from what it was supposed to be
(and the keys didn't work), going back and waiting in line again, getting a
call from the satellite police station on my cell because my wife was
wondering what happened to me, finally getting a car and remembering I never
got a child seat but driving right out because I didn't want to wait in line
again.

Sensible (unamerican) people just take the BART if they are going to SF. I
didn't have that choice because we were going to San Luis Obispo.

I'll admit fueling can be a pain, but car rentals at other airports, even big
ones, are nowhere near as bad.

At LAX, for instance, I reserved a Hertz car on Priceline, caught a shuttle
bus to the car rental center, got the paperwork filled out quickly and drove
off. On the way back they were handling a huge volume of returning automobiles
but it was efficient, really a pleasure.

(I did make the mistake of thinking I could go north on the 405 at 5pm on a
Friday... Had I known LA a little better, I'd have gone north on the surface
streets which are easily accessible from the rental center.)

------
aneth4
Airport car rentals tend to be pretty cheap (<$200/wk), available, and high
quality. This poses a problem for any company attempting to "disrupt" the
industry.

AirBNB is competing with high priced hotels that often are booked and an
existing inefficient P2P subleasing business.

Uber is competing with taxi services notorious for poor responsiveness and
frequent gaps in availability.

I don't see the same room for disruption in the airport car rental market, but
there is likely some room for innovation. Don't count on Hertz and Payless
quaking in their boots any time son.

~~~
mseebach
The biggest problem with car rental is the paper work - for some reason it can
take five-ten minutes per customer to deal with, if nothing goes wrong. I've
waited 20+ minutes on multiple occasions. There is literally no reason it
can't be handled online well in advance (and it typically is, but for some
reason it's repeated in person). Car rental needs something like airline self-
service check-in kiosks more than FlightCar, IMO.

~~~
aneth4
This can be a problem, though I doubt an alternative airport parking based
service would be much quicker.

As mentioned by others, Hertz Gold etc really ups the service, but it's
usually not worth the 2-4x you pay on the rental.

I've found Payless and Fox both to be the cheapest and provide adequate
service. I've had run-ins about fees and such, but generally I fell I get
excellent value.

------
pbreit
Flightcar sounds like a tough call...a lot of moving parts to save a few bucks
on parking and/or car rental and with added anxiety for both parties.

Silvercar sounds more like how renting a car should be (except for the limited
car options)(I'd go with a Toyota/VW lineup).

The things that are completely stupid with current car rental companies: 1)
lengthy checkout process, 2) inability to choose car and 3) anti-customer gas
policies.

~~~
rprasad
*The things that are completely stupid with current car rental companies: 1) lengthy checkout process, 2) inability to choose car and 3) anti-customer gas policies.

I suggest you patronize different car rental companies. Discount car rental
companies skimp on the service and choices. Better ones (Enterprise, Hertz)
focus on the service and only cost a dollar or two more a day than the
discounters.

~~~
pbreit
The more expensive agencies are routinely double the price. And I'm not sure
they fare much better on the points I mentioned.

------
gfodor
I dunno this seems like a solution in search of a problem. The rental car
industry is highly competitive which results in high quality service at low
prices. I don't remember the last time someone I know complained about a
rental car company.

------
ablefire
I don't rent cars all that of then so there may be all kinds of Pro Tips that
I don't know.

My biggest gripe with car rentals is not the experience at the counter but the
schlep from the terminal to the rental car district. First there is the wait
for the shuttle bus, then the tour of the other terminals, then the drive to
the rental lost. By the time you get to the counter you've lost 30 minutes of
your life to waiting and ferrying.

So for me the core problem is that the car is not somewhere extremely
convenient at the terminal when I need it. I do recall some uber-statused
folks at my work having the rental car company meet them at the curb with the
car but this seemed to be an arcane and rarified perk.

It's kinda like the last mile problem. Once you actually get to the rental hub
then it's pretty painless and quick but getting from the plane to the rental
lot is a slow mess.

------
tokenadult
When driverless car services are a routine way for people to obtain a car on
demand, renting a car at an airport is just one subset of obtaining a car for
a one-trip use. It will be interesting to see whether the existing car rental
companies have the management strategies and algorithmic understanding of
maximizing car return on investment needed to make an on-demand driverless car
service a part (and eventually the whole) of their business model. Whoever
wants to be in Flightcar's or Silvercar's (or Uber's) business has to think
ahead to what the wide availability of driverless cars will do to their whole
industry. Those who disrupt can be disrupted in turn, if they are not ready
for the future.

------
dutchbrit
I wouldn't feel comfortable renting my car out. I have visions of people doing
burnouts, handbrake turns, trying to dump the clutch etc... You might not
notice it at first...

Also, lets say I know something is about to go on my car. Something expensive.
Why not bring it there and let someone drive it 10 miles until it breaks and
blame them for it?! Free repairs? Or how would they handle that?

~~~
dsr_
This will be much more feasible when you drive a robocar. Put it in automatic-
only mode, take photos before you leave it, and the insurance will cover all
your potential problems (except the inconvenience of coming back home when the
car isn't there.)

------
kosei
Perhaps I'm the wrong subject as I don't use AirBnB, but the idea of FlightCar
frightens me. Far too much risk to take on for either side with little reward
in terms of cost savings. And frankly, I imagine that the paperwork and
coordination would create even more hassle than that of a typical rental car
company.

------
aes256
I don't see much potential here.

Airport car rental is mostly grunt work. Moving cars, storing them, valeting
them, maintaining them, filling them with gas, sorting out insurance, customer
service, screening customers, chasing late returns, pursuing people for
damages, so on and so forth. 5% booking interface, 95% on the ground work.

There is already healthy competition in the market, and the incumbents do a
pretty good job. There are lots of moving parts, so things often go wrong, but
it's hard to do better.

Who cares about a shiny iPhone app? The existing companies already have
passable online interfaces, and if they don't already have iPhone apps they
have the capital to roll one out in a matter of weeks and crush any looming
competition.

I give both of these startups 12-24 months, and the end won't be pretty.

~~~
ricardobeat
"A pretty good job" (not so pretty when you are waiting in-line for an hour)
is not enough. If they can do the grunt work just as well, or better wrt
refuelling/cleaning, _and a better booking system_ , they will win.

You also missed the picture of car sharing.

~~~
aes256
> "A pretty good job" (not so pretty when you are waiting in-line for an hour)
> is not enough.

You can bet the leading companies have already invested huge amounts seeking
out efficiency savings and ways to improve customer satisfaction.

Slow moving and bogged down in bureaucracy they may be, but if there were a
simple way to avoid common customer complaints (e.g. long queues) without
hurting the bottom line, they would already be doing it.

> You also missed the picture of car sharing.

I can't think of anyone I know who would even consider sharing their car. It's
just an absolute minefield. It might just about work on a small scale, where
you know and trust the people you are sharing with, but that kind of thing
doesn't scale.

~~~
ricardobeat
The big names are trying to do the same: Hertz On Demand, Avis on Location,
etc. But they probably generate lots of revenue from the extra fees and hidden
costs, so they have less of an incentive to switch to more friendly setups.

It's a warming thought that companies are always looking to improve customer
experience, but more often than not, they will _not do_ something because it
_doesn't_ improve the bottom line, not the opposite. And "hurting the bottom
line" depends on the business model, that's where the market can be disrupted.

------
vladoh
I think car sharing solutions like DriveNow (<https://us.drive-now.com/how-it-
works/>) are much better for this case. Instead of giving your own car to
somebody else, it is much easier to drive to the airport in one of the car
sharing cars and drop it at the airport, where somebody else can use it to
drive back to the city. DriveNow already allow free parking at the San
Francisco airport and they are expanding very fast so I think it will be a
really valuable service soon.

------
genwin
You shouldn't let strangers use your car. You are liable for the vehicle
regardless who's driving it. Photo traffic tickets and tolls are just the
start of the liability issues. When the stranger driving it gets into an
accident, you'll be sued too.

------
tomjen3
The brilliant part is that flight car doesn't need an inventory but all their
competitiors do. And inventory is a sunk cost that will force the prices
higher, but will have no benefit to their customers.

------
npguy
Some people might be okay with the risk of someone else driving their car, for
the money, especially in these tough times.

------
TommyDANGerous
Pretty cool ideas, not sure if I'd rent someone my car but I'd definitely rent
someone else's.

------
allerratio
What comes after that? An sort of Airbnb for self storage?

