Posted by John Webb on Mon, Apr 19, 2010 @ 05:07 PM
Flying into and out of Boston's Logan Airport can be challenging. Preparing to have a stress free trip includes more than just packing carefully. Especially in Boston. Travelling to and from the airport can seriously impact the success or fun you are anticipating. So, do you drive yourself or do you have a limousine service take you in? The answer may be surprising!
Driving yourself can be an experience. If you park onsite at the airport, be prepared to walk a fairly long distance. You have the Central Parking Garage and the Terminal B Parking Garage. The spaces near the elevators or near the terminals seem to be permanently full. So now you are forced to park what seems to be a mile or more away. Then you have to schlep all your stuff halfway across the airport....AND you get to pay $168 per week for the privilege! Couple this with a long, dark, cold walk at the end of a nice warm vacation or a grueling business trip, and it makes using our Boston area Limousine service very attractive -- not to mention, it may even be less expensive! Enjoy the comfort of a sedan or van that is sitting there waiting for you to walk out the door of your airline.
Or picture a traffic delay on your way to the airport, it's school vacation or you were late getting started on an important business trip! You get to the airport and the garages are full and they are redirecting you to some overflow lot in Chelsea and you have 57 minutes before take off! It is stressful just thinking of it!!!
Compare this to riding in a very comfortable vehicle that shows up early for your airport transportation to Boston. You are greeted by a professional limousine driver who knows the way around any traffic delay you may ever encounter. The stress level is minimal as he pulls to the curb and helps you unload at the baggage claim check in. You have an hour an a half before your flight. Feeling a bit more comfortable? We have enough to worry about in our lives, travelling to the airport should not be one of them!
Posted by John Webb on Tue, Dec 08, 2009 @ 06:42 PM
So you are a normal, healthy, educated, human being & you've landed in Boston. Maybe you are returning from a business trip or going on or returning from a vacation. Maybe you are visiting Boston on business or for pleasure. Whatever be your situation, you hired a Boston limo company to transport you from the airport. Finding the airport transportation of your choice at the airport should not be dificult. Just to to ground transportation, right? Not so fast. Not in Boston! Now, pay attention.
Limousine service, livery service, corporate sedan service, private van service, an airport shuttle, logically could be considered ground transportation. But not by Boston's Massport Authority. Oh NO! Not here in the home of the Bean & the Cod! In all four terminals, Terminal A, B, C, and E (NOTE NO D: how this happened is the stuff another blog entry is made of -- suffice it to say a lot of Massport connections make a lot of money creating & recreating signs when things change) all have "limo pick up areas" separate from the ground transportation area.
Travelers being picked up by private airport transportation vehicles at Terminals A & E will find the "limo pick-up area" to be across from the baggage claim area. They are forced to cross two or three wide, heavily travelled traffic lanes to access the "limo pick-up area". Now if the weather is cold, windy, rainy, snowy, sleety, etc. prepare to deal with it. Drivers must remain in that lot with their cars. God forbid passengers could wait under the protected areas and their drivers were allowed to pick up them up at the curb under the protected areas keeping them somewhat comfortable. If there is an attempt to provide service like this Massport will ticket, fine and maybe even prohibit the limo company from accessing the airport.
Both halves of Terminal B provide "limo pick areas" on the departure level, NOT the arrival level where the other ground transportation is located. So travelers gather their luggage downstairs, find and elevator or escalator, then exit the building. Now their driver may or may not be there! There are these mean little Massport minions running around checking cards that are issued to limo drivers by people with very poor attitudes in a stinky old doublewide trailer 1/2 way across the other side of the airport. They can be identified by the bright orange vests they don to announce they have the power! They write down the drivers' time of arrival and the clock starts ticking. Now if a customer stops to go the bathroom, has a luggage problem, can't get help with their luggage, or otherwise is delayed getting up to the "limo pick up area" the driver may be gone. After approximately 10 minutes the Massport minion kicks the driver out of the limo "pick up area" if the customer hasn't arrived. Now the driver has to leave and return to the doublewide; once again disrupting the Massport person from reading their latest trashy novel to get another card permitting the driver to return to the terminal only to be pounced upon once again by the orange vested minion! This can take up to 20 to 25 minutes! All the while the customer waiting for his/her ride may have been standing there thinking the driver was late! AND we PAY for this "privelege" each time we get a card!!!!
Can you imagine if these orange vested attack dogs had a mission to assist customers! What if they were there to make sure Logan Airport customers had a hassle free experience instead of living to make the process of private transportation more and more tedious than it already is! Imagine if the Massport officials were paid based on the level of satisfaction of the customers and vendors that use and serve the airport. Enough fantasy, let's get to Terminal C, the worst of both prior examples.
In Terminal C, the terminal before Terminal E, passengers go down one level to the baggage claim and ground transportation to get their luggage. But, once again, this is not where the limos pick their customers up. Passengers must drag all their baggage up one level to the departure level to access the limo pick up area. Then, they have to cross two heavily trafficed vehicle lanes AND leave the protected areas to get rained on, snowed on, sleeted on, windblown, etc. to get to their car. Now the luggage is wet, the passenger is wet, the driver is wet....have a nice ride to your destination! Oh, I almost forgot! There are orange vested Massport minions there too. So, quite possibly if there was any delay getting to the "limo pick-up area" th orange vested Massport minion forced the driver to leave and get another ticket further delaying the customer's pick-up!!! Ain't government grand!!! Welcome to Boston! The good news...if you hired Webb Transportation Services...your troubles are over!! Sit back and enjoy.
What does Webb Transportation do to try to alleviate these absurd issues? Our drivers try hard to call every customer shortly after landing. They tell the customer what car they are in and provide their personal cell # in case the customer has some issues that delay them. The customers are asked to call the driver when they have their luggage and are headed up to the pick up area. Then the driver tries to time his arrival to prevent being thrown out. In bad weather, the driver will do everything possible to meet the customer as soon as possible to assist with the luggage & facilitate getting into the vehicle as fast as possible. We can't change the rules, but we will bend them as far as possible to make your experience as stress-free as possible. Happy trails!