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PARKING TECH 26 airportbusiness May 2014 Codd speaks from experience. As the busiest international airport in Ireland, serving more than 19.2 million passengers annually, it is safe to say Dublin Airport is the airport of choice to fly out of. But when it comes to parking, the airport's passengers didn't always view the airport as 'the' place to park. In the 1990s and 2000s, parking competitors moved into neighboring properties and began enticing Dublin Airport customers to park in their lots through a mix of better pricing and enhanced customer service. While the outlying parking lots and garages were five minutes or more away, these businesses offered complimentary shuttle buses to the airport every five minutes, 24 hours a day. Not only that, but by pre-booking and paying online, passengers could park their vehicles at rates far below the airport's long-term parking fees. As a result, though Dublin Airport was the airport of choice to fly out of, it was not customers' top pick for parking. "Over a number of years, parking became neglected, expensive and less customer- friendly than it should have been," Codd admits. "We were the big airport that didn't think anyone could touch us until people began parking off-site. We had to stand back and try to understand why that was and what we could do about it." The resulting analysis led the Dublin Airport Make Parking a Priority A passenger's journey begins when they park their car, but passengers have a choice on where they park. Dublin Airport combines technology, know-how and commercial expertise to become passengers' preferred place to park A n airport parking garage is where a passenger's journey really begins but all too often airports forget that fact, accord- ing to Colm Codd, head of business development at Dublin Airport Authority. By Ronnie L. Garrett Dublin Airport no longer staffs its exits with customer service agents. The entire payment process is automated. airb_26-29_ParkingTech.indd 26 5/2/14 9:52 AM