Tesla transfers and skipping queues in digital-age travel
BEING green doesn’t come cheap — and few of us could stump up €91,000 upwards for a Tesla Model S, or €10,000 more (and up) for a sportier Tesla Model X.
But now environmentally aware corporate travellers can salve their consciences by riding in Teslas while heading off or home on business.
Global chauffeur provider Blacklane has just introduced the two models as part of its Green Class service. Under it, travellers can book and take emissions-free chauffeured rides in 20 cities around the world.
The really good news? Dublin is on the list, along with other business hotspots including Amsterdam, Lisbon, London, Milan, Paris, Montreal, Hong Kong and Zurich.
If petrol’s still your thing, traditional fleets of business class luxury cars, business van/SUV and first-class vehicles are available in 260 cities worldwide.
The added bonus about going green, Blacklane says, is that companies can also lower their emissions using the zero-emission cars and help fulfil Corporate Social Responsibility goals.
It’s the latest part of a process in which the company is aiming to bring the airport and other transfers, and meet-and-greet chauffeur services, into the digital age.
One major push is a new service, Blacklane PASS (standing for (Premium Airport Services & Solutions), with which travellers can skip security and immigration queues, or have access to lounges, in more than 500 airports.
It’s handy when arriving in a foreign or unknown destination, with the arrival service providing a concierge to meet you at the plane door or after customs, depending on airport rules.
If met at the aircraft door, you’re taken to the front of the immigration and customs line, and helped along with your baggage. If you’ve also booked a chauffeur, you’re escorted to him or her.
The departures service has similar offerings, also with assistance for VAT refunds and shopping, while there’s also a connection service to bypass long security and immigration lines.
PASS uses local agents who have airside clearance, Blacklane chief executive and co-founder Jens Wohltorf, told the Sunday Independent from the company’s Berlin headquarters. He said it’s the latest step to provide a well-timed “seamless” travel experience, not just its typical driver offering from door to airport or vice versa.
“We saw a lot of difficulties in the global travel chain in terms of stress reduction with airport navigation,” Wohltorf said. “You either run through the airport totally stressed out, or find yourself being bored in a duty-free shop awaiting boarding, or standing in immigration.”
Started in 2011, the company initially focused on ground transportation alone, with Wohltorf adding that the classic black-tie industry was “offline and underutilised, with differences in service levels and quality” from city to city.
It brought local partners and drivers (speaking English is a requirement) under the one online umbrella, but said the company “wanted to dive into the airside, behind the security zone”.
It found the solution in a startup from Las Vegas which he said was keen to aggregate in “a highly fragmented, totally offline legacy industry” and convert it into a modern consistent one.
Blacklane acquired the company last year and now it’s just introduced the plane-to-car service in 500 airports, even “non-mainstream ones”, and the list includes Dublin, Shannon, Cork and Belfast.
But it hasn’t been easy to get everyone on board. “If you’re dealing with airports some are still sitting on very high price expectations” and said local suppliers can “add 500pc to the real cost, so we see a large variety of pricing, and often not very smart price-setting”.
He believes the PASS move is “democratising this type of service which used to be just for celebrities and the rich and the beautiful — we want to bring it into mainstream business travel”.
Prices are the same across the board — $100 at every airport for each individual service, whether it’s a pick-up or departure. PASS can be booked on its own, or in combination with chauffeur transfers at additional cost. Lounge access can also be booked, in any of 1,000 lounges globally, for a flat fee of $50, without the need for membership or frequent flyer status.
“That’s pretty disruptive,” he said of the business model. “The principle is the same,” he told this column. “Identifying local vendors, which can be part of the airport company or private suppliers in the limousine service.
“They are not playing a scale game and scale is the decisive factor to bring price points down in this sector as price points are still way too high.”