Bristol: Airport Parking

[Aviador]

This thread is for discussions about on and off site airport parking at Bristol Airport. Things that people might want to discuss; the price of airport parking on and off site; airport valet parking; airport parking scams by off site company's. Or anything related to parking at or around airports.

 

[News Guru]

Re: On & Off Site Airport Parking

Bristol Airport car parks change to ANPR

Bristol Airport is making significant changes to its car park processes from Thursday (March 10) that will affect all pre-book customers. All Barrier equipment and supporting hardware is being changed, with the current credit card recognition at the barriers being replaced with automated number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras as the means of booking confirmation.

The changes apply to the airport's Long Stay and Premier car parks from March 10. When a customer arrives at the barrier, the ANPR camera will read the vehicle registration plate and apply the booking. The customer will take a ticket from the barrier column and proceed to find a space in the car park; retaining the ticket they have been issued. Upon exit, the customer inserts the same ticket into the column at the exit barrier to raise the barrier and leave the car park.

Source

 

[Aviador]

The Number Plate Recognition system sounds like it's all singing all dancing but in practice it suffers from problems much the same as without the system.The system can often fail to work during morning or evening sunlight when the sun is shining into the camera sensors. Rain and snow can also cause similar problems as can dirty number plates on the vehicle. For the majority of the time it will work fine but it will be a hassle for those affected by the systems occasional problems but it's definitely not all that it is made out to be.

 

[News Guru]

[textarea]Bristol Airport announce £1 drop off / pick up charge

Bristol Airport is to introduce a charge for people dropping off and picking up passengers. Drivers are to be charged £1 to use the drop-off and pick-up zone next to the terminal from May 23. The car park was introduced in April 2007 when the forecourt at the airport was closed to traffic following a terrorist attack on Glasgow Airport. Currently, a ten-minute free period is offered.

A charge of £1 will apply for stays of up to 20 minutes in length. Signs have been placed around the airport warning customers about the changes and people using the airport are also being given details about the new charges in a pamphlet. Taxi drivers will not be exempt from the charges but will be able to apply for a discount from the airport.

People with disabled badges will still be allowed to park for 30 minutes for free in the pick-up zone. Several other airports already charge people for using drop-off zones, including Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, East Midlands, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Liverpool. All charge £1 except Bournemouth, which charges £2.50.

Source[/textarea]

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I know I go on about spin but the below quote from a BRS spokesman as reported in the Bristol Evening Post on Friday wins my star prize.

Currently there is free parking for just ten minutes in the drop-off zone. However, many people, particularly at busy times, are unable to get out within the ten minutes because of queues at the payment station and are then charged an excess fee of, I think, about four quid.

The airport has put a positive spin on this saying they are actually reducing the cost for those who stay between ten and twenty minutes with the new charge - in other words those people who can't get out of the current drop-off park (through no fault of their own) in time to avoid the excess charge.

The quote is as follows:

Currently, a ten-minute free period is provided. However, spaces are limited which leads to severe congestion during busy periods.This can result in customers incurring additional charges as they look for a space or queue to exit the car park. To ease congestion and provide a more efficient service to customers, a new tariff will be introduced in the drop-off and pick-up zone. A charge of £1 will apply for stays of up to 20 minutes in length. The current ten-minute free period will be maintained at another location on site. This represents a decrease in cost for passengers staying between 10 and 20 minutes.

The new free ten-minute drop-off car park is situated quite a distance from the terminal.

 

[Aviador]

I don't know why they don't just be honest.

"We aren't making enough money from concessions in the terminal or through airline landing fees so to ensure our charges are kept to a minimum for our main airlines Ryanair and Easyjet we are passing the extra charges onto the customer."

I have read a couple of articles this week regarding pick-up and drop-off charges at other airports. It seems that all airports are creeping these new charges in.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

by Surtidos » Tue May 17, 2011 12:33 pm

I suggest everyone boycots airports that make a
Charge for dropping off. Either get dropped off outside the airport
and walk in, which may cause traffic or safety concerns and alert a reverse of this policy. Or use an alternative airport, despite your inconvenience.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

The problem is that more and more airports in the UK are doing this and it's becoming increasingly difficult to find one in any area that doesn't.

It's one of many ancillary revenue streams that airports have turned to - including charging for fast-lane security clearance, charging for baggage trolleys, charging for clear plastic bags and 'development' charges.

They will say the cut-throat terms that airlines (especially lo-cos) demand from them leave little leeway in terms of making profits from the traditional methods.

I did see what appeared to be an extended family of about eight people with wheeled suitcases walking towards the BRS terminal from the A 38 roundabout last week, so maybe they were doing what you suggest.

I'm certainly not condoning what airports are doing in this regard, merely pointing out the realities of the situation. The problem is that once one airport adopts a new money-making enterprise and gets away with it most of the others will follow.

How long will it be before most airports in the UK (at least the majority of the regional ones) charge a fee merely to fly from it?

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I've been out at the airport a couple of times in recent weeks and contractors have been busy painting double red lines along the kerbside of every roadway accessible to the public so far as I can see.

There is also a notice at the entrance to the airport in the name of the company that operates the parking concessions saying that all airport roads are privately owned and it's not permitted to stop anywhere except in designated (paid) parking areas on pain of a £60 penalty which will be reduced to £40 if paid immediately.

The notice warns that the company will obtain from the DVLA the registered owner's details of any vehicle seen contravening this notice. Presumably the automatic number plate recognition cameras, or something like them, recently brought on line at car park entrances have been extended around the airport to record the vehicle details of miscreants.

The trouble is the writing on the notice at the entrance is so small that it can only be read by standing next to it on the pavement, and any driver must therefore stop his/her vehicle on the red lines to be able to see what it says.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Drop off-pick up car parks

When BRS announced it was to charge £1 for the first 20 minutes at its rapid pick up-drop off car park near the terminal building it said it would also provide a free facility, albeit some way from the terminal.

I've discovered it this week and very well-laid out it is too, with a proper surface and painted parking spots, unlike the main car parks that are gravel surfaced and rather scruffy, though they serve their purpose.

The free pick up-drop car park (free for ten minutes) is situated near the emergency/operational vehicle entrance in Downside Road. It's about a 300-metre walk to the terminal.

However, to drive to it you have to travel via the A 38 main entrance past the terminal and past the £1 pick up-drop off car park. The free car park was empty when I was there but if it's open (it appears to be) that might not be a surprise because I couldn't find any signs on the airport either mentioning it or directing drivers to it.

 

[Aviador]

£1 for twenty minutes. At Leeds the charge is double at £2 but for 30 minutes as opposed to just 20 minutes. For people who want to use the paid facility to do just that , pick-up or drop-off, £1 isn't bad at all. How much does it cost in the pick-up and drop-off if you go over the 20 minutes?

 

[TheLocalYokel]

How much does it cost in the pick-up and drop-off if you go over the 20 minutes?

20-30 mins £4
30-60 mins £5
1-2 hours £12
2-24 hours £50

On its website the airport recommends that for stays over 20 minutes the short-stay car park is used.

The free drop-off/pick-up is free for 10 minutes, then £4 for 10-30 minutes and £50 for anything over 30 minutes.

The free drop-off/pick-up is listed in the airport website car parking section together with a map of all car parks including that one.

 

[Aviador]

The cost of airport parking has risen so much in recent years it is becoming a concern.

I don't know if this is a problem at Bristol airport but here in Leeds people are resorting to parking on the streets surrounding the airport.

Unfortunately for me I live on a road where the houses don't have off-road parking so this problem has started to affect me personally.

It's not fun carrying a toddler down to the bottom of the street because you have a car parked outside your house for two weeks because somebody has decided to avoid paying for parking at the airport.

I am an avid supporter of airport growth and I know it's a balancing act for airports to making money these days due to the very nature of this cut throat industry. I just hope that airports can get better at making money by other means in the years to come.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

There aren't any streets where people can park in the vicinity of BRS. It really is right out in the countryside.

The airport has made serious attempts this summer to get people to use its car parks with various offers. I paid just £29.99 for eight days parking in June.

There are a number of unofficial car parks nearby with minibus transport to the airport. Over the years a lot have been shut down by the local authority but some seem to survive, maybe because they also offer accommodation though, from the number of cars parked around some of them, not everyone would be staying for a night at the beginning or end of the trip - there woudln't be enough rooms.

 

[conns757]

Local

Dont you think cars are parked from off sites around the Pavillions by les scrupulous car park providers????

Time for some investigating!!

 

[TheLocalYokel]

The Pavilions at Bedminster Down?

Hadn't heard any whispers about that. I know a scheme at Gatwick, I think it was Gatwick, was exposed by a tv programme a few years ago where punters' cars were driven miles from where they thought their vehicle was going to be parked to waste ground and left there. I have a feeling that some cars were also used by the car park staff for their own use whilst the owners were away.

Unless the toe-rags wind back the mileometer - which is probably not that easy on modern cars - a punter ought to know whether his car has been moved, even if it's only a few miles to Bedminster Down. At least some would and I'm one. Being a suspicious old git I always note the mileage reading when I park my car for an extended period in a car park and when it goes into the garage for repairs or servicing.

Is the Pavilions thing widely rumoured?

 

[conns757]

local

its been known

not all record their milage.

pavillions is on the flyer route and easy to drop cars around the area

maybe not as bad as a few years ago but dont underestimate some of the toe rags that dont pay taxes , abuse the goodwill of the public and even use cars dropped off for private use whilst u are away in the austrian alps!

hope u are well - i see theo often

 

[TheLocalYokel]

hope u are well - i see theo often

You too.

I shall have to disguise myself more thoroughly.

I was up on Dolebury Warren on the Mendips above Churchill today. Magnificent visibility as far south west as Quantocks/Exmoor, west along the Channel well beyond Barry and CWL with Cardiff itself and Newport reflecting in the sun, and the North Somerset coast as far north as Clevedon. And across the broad Wrington Vale BRS sat astride Broadfield Down with a succession of take-offs and landings.

Seemed like the top of the world - top of North Somerset anyway, well nearly.

A good place to spot the car borrowers. :reallyshocked:

 

[TheLocalYokel]

A tale of the free dropoff car park at BRS

I read an amusing tale this week in that august journal, the Chew Valley Gazette. It was only amusing to me because a tight-backsided woman finished up paying over fifty quid as she was too mean to pay a pound.

She was so distressed at her misfortune that she felt compelled to write to the local rag to tell everyone about it.

Unfortunately, I can't link to the letter because the CVG seems to have access for only a limited selection of its output to be placed on the Internet.

Our fair damsel (she may be dark haired or red-headed but a bit of literary licence never does any harm) arrived one dark and damp evening (it was, according to her) at Bristol Airport ('Amazing Journeys Start Here') to pick up her elderly father and parked in the free dropoff park which is about 500 metres from the terminal. It's free for the first ten minutes, incurs a £4 fee for the next 20 minutes, thereafter its £50 for a stay of 30 minutes or more.

She walked to the terminal, met her father and they then walked back to the free drop-off car park. She omitted to say that for a quid she could have parked for up to 20 minutes in a dropoff/pickup park right next to the terminal. This would have saved her old man, who we learned is not fleet of foot, the onerous trudge all the way to the free park and maybe the £2 luggage trolley fee as well as they might have been able to carry the suitcases that short distance.

Of course, by the time they got to the park it was no longer free. Over 30 minutes had elapsed since our heroine left her car and she was slapped with a £50 charge which, with insult added to injury, became nearly £52 because she had insufficient cash and incurred an additional credit card charge.

The dutiful daughter told us all that there may been signs warning of the excess charges (there are - I've seen them and they are prominently displayed) but busy people (like her, I suppose) can't be expected to waste time reading them.

She then came up with an innovative solution which is that local people (from this I presume she lives nearby) should be given some sort of special treatment when it came to picking up travellers from the airport. I couldn't follow her 'logic' for this suggestion so I won't bother trying to explain it.

In the same letters page an erstwhile regular and previously 'loyal' customer of BRS denounced its car parking and trolley charges as rip-offs, and the lack of seating in the public areas is a disgrace. So much so that he flies from other airports whenever possible and recommends others to do likewise.

He neglects to say that most regional airports have similar drop-off car park charges and several charge for trolleys, and that the cost of travelling to distant airports must significantly outweigh the fees that BRS levies for parking and trolleys. Sounds like a classic case of cutting off nose to spite face.

 

[Aviador]

Complainers, It's amazing how they always conveniently miss the bits that would otherwise make themselves look stupid.

The previously 'loyal' customer who has denounced the airport charges will no doubt still be happy to take an Ryanair or Easyjet flight for next to 'nowt'.

It seems Joe public wants to pay nothing for the privilege of using his local airport as opposed to having to pay for petrol to use a more expensive service else where. 🙄