Revealed, cars pranged and left in a f lood by Stansted’s parking team
ONE of Britain’s busiest holiday airports has been accused of letting its parking operation descend into a ‘joke’ – with keys lost, vehicles damaged and car parks flooded.
Passengers make 25 million journeys from Stansted Airport each year – but a whistleblower at its Meet and Greet parking service claims it is ‘consistently overbooked’ and cannot cope with demand.
Pictures taken inside the car park show how one car was left with its front bumper hanging off after a collision, while other vehicles were left on rutted or flooded ground in overspill parking areas.
Another car had a side window smashed after its keys were lost. Staff were forced to break in to let off the handbrake so it could be moved, it is claimed.
One customer, Stephanie Bland, has accused airport parking staff of writing off her car after it suffered engine damage which she claims was caused by poor driving.
The airport said it was due to the car’s age and lack of appropriate servicing.
The whistleblower said: ‘Stansted need to resolve this. At the moment customers would be better off parking their car at the side of the road – it would be safer.
‘Cars are regularly damaged for a number of reasons, includ- ing careless driving and parking in locations that are flooded.
‘Many suffer all kinds of damage because of potholes and drivers going too fast. There are also lots of flat batteries, usually from when staff have left the lights or radio on.
‘The airport also allows consistent overbooking, knowing that it can’t handle the number of cars that need to be moved.’
The airport’s meet and greet service allows holidaymakers to leave their car and have someone else park it for them, saving time.
But two weeks ago the service went into meltdown after what was described as a technical
glitch meant hundreds of drivers’ keys went missing. Many who had just flown in were faced with three or four-hour waits to reclaim their cars, while others were given complimentary taxis home or hotel accommodation as staff searched for their vehicles. The whistleblower added that Stansted owners Manchester Airport Group, which also runs Manchester, East Midlands, and Bournemouth airports, had called staff in from around the country ‘to try and clear up the mess’.
‘The whole thing is a complete joke,’ he said. ‘If I was a member of the public I would not leave my car at Stansted Airport’s meet and greet service in a million years.’
A Stansted spokesman said the airport apologised to ‘cus- tomers who have been inconvenienced’ and that it had begun a ‘thorough review of all the processes’ relating to the meet and greet service. We have already begun to implement a number of changes in order to maintain the high service standards we strive to deliver for customers, including improved staff training, enhanced storage and collection facilities and the recruitment of additional staff,’ he said.
He added that an area of ‘secure on- site storage’ was flooded on August 9 due to ‘exceptional rainfall’ and that the damage to a car bumper was due to a driver suffering a ‘medical emergency’.
The issue of a broken side window was under investigation and the owner was being compensated.
The spokesman added its drivers were fully checked and trained, that a new 4,000-space secure meet and greet area has just opened and checks were in place to ensure that capacity is never exceeded.
‘Drivers going too fast’