BWI Extends Express Parking Promotion Through the Holidays

This article, BWI Extends Express Parking Promotion Through the Holidays, was found in Aviation Week.  This article was run on November 13, 2007 and covers the promotion going on at the Baltimore-Washington Thurgood Marshall International Airport.  Their promotion deals with giving coupons to customers to get cheaper rates on their "Express Parking" option.  Apparently Express Parking is a service that is normally more expensive and includes assistance with customer's luggage and a shuttle service.  In order to get the word out on what Express Parking is, BWI came up with this campaign "Express for Less" and another similar campaign to advertise their other luxury parking options called "Park Happy at BWI." The Express for Less campaign which was started February 17th has been doing so well that this extension into the holiday season will become the 3rd extension of this particular promotion.

The success of this campaign can also be tracked through the numbers.  The Express Parking lot had to be closed a number of times because it was full and BWI has seen the number of customers taking advantage of this service practically double.  Due to the amount of success, extending the length of this promotion can really only help BWI financially as well as with customer satisfaction.  Customer satisfaction in the past couple years with airports has been steadily declining with the increased occurence of lost luggage, flight delays, and poor customer service during those stressful times.  In addition BWI is really helping itself through this promotion because parking at airports gets so expensive and is actually ridiculous.  BWI wants to leave a good impression with their customers and they realize that parking plays a huge role in customer satifaction.

BWI's efforts in this campaign won third place in the marketing and communications contest ACI-NA in 2007.  Also prompting them to look into more promotion and coupon ventures for different aspects of their airport.  Express for Less also incouraged the use of the airport's website to check on the availability of the lot, in the future BWI wants to draw more attention to their website and its advantages.  Utilizing the website and displaying its features will boost BWI into the 21st century.

A promotion like Express for Less is revolutionizing the airport industry at least because now there is competition.  I've always gotten the feeling that the people who run airports know that they are intrical to a traveler's ability and people will pay what they have to and put up with what they have to in order to get where they want to get.  With that said, there are very few good airline/airport promotions going on out there, and if people are interested in using a parking service at an airport such as BWI, this way they have more of an incentive too and also a couple dollars off.  Parking just seems like another way for the airport to take more your money so if one airport is actually helping the customers and giving them a discounted rate, then extending it to one of the busiest flying times of the year it raises the bar for the other airports to get the on customer's good side.

Flying is such a hassel nowadays and there are so many complaints, BWI is stepping up by giving people a helpful service that makes their experience a little better for a little cheaper.  This promotion emits a feeling that BWI cares about their customers and BWI can really only prosper from this promotion, and in turn other promotions they are anticipating doing.