Renting a car at the Las Vegas airport just got easier with the opening of the new $167 million McCarran Rent-A-Car Center.
With the new facility, all eleven of the car rental companies will be housed in the same building and will share common-use shuttles to ferry customers from the airport terminals to the rental center. The rental companies will also share fueling and cleaning stations. Over 1.8 million car rental contracts were issued last year at McCarran, according to the Clark County Department of Aviation, so this should streamline operations greatly.
Housed at this new facility are Alamo, Avis, Advantage Rent-A-Car, Budget, Dollar, Enterprise, Hertz, National, Payless, Savmor and Thrifty. Car rental companies that aren’t represented at the new centralized facility have to pick up their customers from there as well. No car rental facilities will be housed at the airport building itself anymore.
Customers should benefit by having all of the cars under the same roof as the rental counters. For starters, they’ll be picking up their cars outside of the airport, reducing congestion and making it easier should there be problems with the rentals. Customers will also be able to get to the Rent-A-Car center faster since they only have to wait for the next center shuttle, instead of waiting for the next individual rental company shuttle. The shuttles should pick up outside of doors 10 or 11 at the airport.
However some early reports from guests to the city are reporting longer walks from the counter to the actual cars, which can be a problem when saddled with a lot of luggage.
The new facility is located at 7135 Gilespie St and is modeled after similar facilities at airports in Phoenix, San Francisco and Dallas.
As for the in-airport rental counters that are now empty, sources say those will be removed and the space used to expand the baggage claim area. The airport also has plans to turn the the parking lots that formerly held rental cars into extra long-term parking for the airport.
Subscribe
|
Print
|
Share             
|
I was rudely introduced to the new car rental center my last time out. My usual plan was to rent my car in the terminal while waiting for the luggage to come down from the plane. No such efficiency allowed now. Wait for your luggage then get on a bus and wait behind everyone else who came on a bus before you to get your car. Took at least and hour longer than the old way. P I T A
While the shuttles were efficient, what was sad was how rude the workers were. They treated everyone like cattle, directed people away from the shortest lines, we were all filed away in 20 to 30 minute queues despite how many buses were out there. It’s sad that for a convention and tourist city, the crowd control people were just too rude.
The old system was better b/c each driver wore the pride of their car rental companies. This new system take more time per passenger and makes it less easy to get in and out.
The car rental companies should demand a customer satisfaction survey be conducted quarterly and that SLA’s are met.