It has been a rough couple of months with snow and specifically Logan Airport snow. It is tough enough to work that airport in good weather. Long story short, I am working with a rookie Chauffeur. Although I do not know what his profession was in his previous life, he is obviously intelligent, professional, and will likely provide value to his new employer. I always enjoy learning what a rookie used to be. It gives me some strange insight into their head and what I can expect from them. It is also possible that I am simply nosey. I have met newbies with PhD’s that couldn’t find the gas cap on a sprinter.
His order on this given morning is a simple 500am retail outbound from New Hampshire to Logan. My only communication thus far was confirming he was awake. Roughly thirty minutes before pick up he calls me frantic. I tell him to calm down and then I ask him what is wrong. He explains that his party’s flight is canceled. I check online and he was right on. The flight was in fact canceled.
I explain that our emphasis is on their return flight and the outbound is none of our concern unless the provider booked them in their arrival city. I said furthermore, the airline will contact them and rebook or reroute. On the other hand, the clients never called me so I finish with a simple statement. “Proceed as scheduled.” Many are on the fence with this issue. Back in the day cancellations were real money because no technology existed to tip off the players. I once set a record where three separate cars cleared at O’Hare airport and returned with a previous car’s party who didn’t learn they were canceled until they made it through the line.
Processing a routine round trip equals 100% revenue. Depending on the cancel dynamic that trip just increased to 150%, or in some cases 200% revenue. Call me wrong if you disagree but I believe our job is monitoring the inbounds not the outbounds. Now another factor is the chauffeur pay policy on this. Since chauffeur pay differs with all our clients I have no clue how the dollars are divided on these matters.
I can’t really justify sticking my nose into that territory. A huge percentage of our industry’s clientele have impressive status with the travel industry, frequent flyer programs, points, and other mechanisms who looks out for them and fixes these nuisance issues. At the end of the day, once we drop them off at the airport or home we have fulfilled our business arrangement. Right?
Baseball games can have weather delays, concerts go overtime and naturally flights can be delayed in or out. Making money off these issues is what I think can safely be called a fringe benefit.
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