Real Life Customer Stories from a Manchester Airport Parking Carpark.
In this post I will tell you some Real life unbelievable things that happened with our customers and some that were not our customers! I will not use any names to save them embarrassment!
We often got customers who have had a flat tyre or been badly delayed in traffic and they are running very late and are therefore very worried about missing their flight. In this situation we would try to get them to the airport immediately. But people in a rush can forget things!
Open window!
A woman in a Range Rover Evoque was running late. She jumped out and we rushed her to the airport. But, she had left the drivers window wide open and she had her key so we couldn’t close it. She was going to be gone for two weeks and we were in Manchester! Manchester is known as the ‘rainy city’ so her car was going to get soaked inside. We covered her window with a binbag a couple of times but the wind kept blowing it away. Unbelievably, when she came back two weeks later, the inside of her car was not wet and it had rained several times! She was unbelievably lucky.
Passport?
A bit of a sad story was a family in a rush parked up and we got them to Manchester Airport, but the husband couldn’t find his passport! He said he had checked all the passports three times, but it had mysteriously disappeared. He had to send his family on holiday without him! He returned to the carpark to see if he left it in the car. He searched his car for a good half an hour but it wasn’t there. He went back home to hunt for it. Luckily the next day he came back with it and joined his family a day later.
Super Cool
One woman arrived in a car that was making a terrible noise and had black smoke coming out the back with a burning smell. She had heard the noise an hour earlier, but she was not missing her flight for anything, and she just carried on driving! She just about made it to the carpark. Most people would have stopped and called a breakdown firm. We were worried the car would burst into flames! She went on holiday and while there she arranged for the RAC to come and repair her car. They came, could not repair it, so they took it away for repair. They brought it back a few days before she came back off her holiday. She returned, got in her car and drove off as if nothing had happened! That was super cool.
Wrong Minibus
One day I was learning to drive the minibus, and where the Airport terminals were. The driver who was training me would jump out when we got to our allocated bus stop at the airport terminal to help the returning customers. He confirmed with them that they were our customers, but an elderly couple mustn’t have been listening properly. They got on our minibus, we took them back to the carpark and on arrival they said “This is not our carpark!” We then realised they had got on our minibus by mistake. We took them back to the airport bus stop we picked them up from for them to wait again for their correct minibus!
Missing customer!
We got customers from all walks of life, and occasionally we got doctors. A Scottish doctor in his 40’s had parked with us and called from the airport to be collected. The driver went to collect him but called me at the office to say he is not there. The drivers are not allowed to wait so he carried on collecting other customers. An hour went past and the Doctor called again to be collected. I asked him “The driver has been for you, where were you?” He sheepishly said “I got on the wrong bus.” I was shocked. I can understand an old couple doing that, but not an intelligent young Doctor! He had been to another carpark and back to the airport.
Arrested at the Airport!
A married husband and wife booked with us as a last minute change to their plans. They were meant to be going camping, but the campsite had double booked them so they booked a cheap holiday abroad instead. They were travelling light with just hand luggage and we took them to the airport as usual. A few hours later the wife called back and asked if they could be collected from the airport? I asked “Was the flight cancelled?” to which she replied “No, my husband was arrested by the Police!”
It turned out that when their bags were checked at the security in the airport, her husband had left a camping knife in his rucksack! It was a genuine mistake and he didn’t know it was there, but security called the Police. The Police arrived and arrested him on a terrorism charge! The Police eventually realised it was a genuine mistake and released him without charge. But they had missed their flight and decided to go home. With two holidays messed up they decided they were not meant to go on holiday this year!
Driving to Cumbria?
One day we had a driver missing so I was replacing him. I collected customers from the terminals as usual and the minibus was full. Two of the passengers were a young German couple. We got to the carpark and everyone got out and got their luggage. The German couple came to me and said “we think we have got on the wrong bus!” I thought “not again!” They mustn’t have understood my explanation of carpark. I took them back to the airport, when they explained they were collecting a hire car! They didn’t even want a carpark! Their english was not bad, but said they had never been to the UK before and were going to a wedding in Cumbria. After dropping them off I thought “wow, they’ve never been to the UK, have already made a blunder, and are going to drive from Manchester to Cumbria?” I hope they got there OK.