To be completely honest, I gave a lot of thought as to whether I should write this review of Flight Park Nashville, whose airport parking services we chose to use this past week after purchasing a Groupon.

Realistically, sharing my experiences with my friends is what I did way before I started blogging (don’t we all?). But now that I have a public voice, with that comes responsibility.

But I was EXTREMELY disappointed in our experience with Flight Park tonight and would hate for any of you to be treated the way I treated.

The deciding factor for me in whether or not to write this unsolicited review of Flight Park airport parking was that a slightly similar experience happened with the Nashville parking service we typically use (Executive Parking), but with a MUCH different result. So if they had enough wherewithall to handle a mistake with grace and dignity, I don’t know why others couldn’t possess the same basic human skills as well.

UPDATE: I was contacted by Eric, the co-owner of Flight Park expressing his great concern over the fact that I had a less than desirable experience. He said in the 12 years he’s been in business, he’s had less than a handful of negative complaints. I truly appreciate the fact that he reached out to me and I suggested there needs to be a different level of customer service amongst his employees, especially those in an ownership role. He felt my blog post was very harsh, and did not appreciate that I said there was a lack of common sense used. Obviously, I’m not in the airport parking business and trust he knows how to run his business better than I do and that I may be an anomaly in this situation.

I ended the conversation by saying that regardless of whether or not we agree or disagree, I can’t change the way I was made to feel (much like I can’t tell my 8 year old daughter to stop crying when she’s upset, regardless of whether it’s a rational reason or not). Bottom line is this: I will accept the fact that what happened to me at Flight Park was not their usual level of service and the fact that Eric went through the trouble to rectify the situation speaks volumes to me. It’s just unfortunate that I was made to feel the way I did.

*****
Here’s the low down:
We arrived at Nashville International Airport around 6:30pm after logging a 12 hour day up to that point. We gathered our bags from baggage claim and called Flight Park as we were instructed to do. Making our way to the ground transporation with (admittedly) far too many bags and two small children was not what I would call a quick process, but, as I later explained to the manager, it’s not like I was hanging out, chit-chatting with the locals while smoking a cigarette either.

It appeared that we just missed a shuttle pulling away from us as we made it outside, so we proceeded to the pickup location. Seeing as it was in the teens and we just emerged from 70 degree weather, we weren’t thrilled about waiting outside, but we also didn’t’ want to risk missing another shuttle by waiting in the ‘waiting room’.

We noticed both of their competitors each had two shuttles come while we continued to wait, so I called again. They said two shuttles were on their way. When we finally saw a shuttle, they announced they couldn’t stop where we were standing – apparently, we were on the left side of the sign instead of the right (a detail that they failed to mention to us, but in all fairness to them, did turn out to be on the bottom of the back side of our parking receipt).

The shuttle driver shouted so much as that out the window as he passed by us. By the time we got the kids and the luggage together and made our way to the right pickup location, the shuttle had filled again and left us on the sidewalk.

So I called again.

They assured me a second shuttle was on its way, and it did show up a minute later.

To our surprise again, we let ourselves into a shuttle with absolutely no heat going on. After our family and another couple loaded in and the driver finished loading the bags, we had to ask for him to turn the heat on.

He radioed ‘base’ and told them our names and that we were on our way back. When we arrived, we found our van with the trunk open, front windows down, and the heat blaring out the car at 84 degrees.

But here’s the kicker: it had been running for 25 minutes!!!!

Would you EVER sit anywhere in your car and let the engine run with full heat and open windows for 5 minutes, much less 25?

Not this girl.

Perhaps my mistake is that I operate in this world with a basic understanding of common sense and expect others to do so as well. Obviously, my expectations are too high.

When I went in to the office, they let me know I had no balance because of my Groupon. I questioned whether or not to say anything else because there was another customer in there and while I believe in being honest, there’s no need to embarrass anyone.

However, they asked how I was, so I proceeded to tell them how shocked I was that our engine had been left running for so long. Here are a few of the responses I got back from them:
“How do you know it was 25 minutes?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Why did you wait so long before getting on the shuttle?” (This is when I offered then the above-mentioned cigarette smoking comment along with the question of whether or not they’d sit in their car in a parking lot with the engine running for 25 minutes).

I got blank stares. I got snarky comments thrown my way. He made his frustration with me clear.There may have eventually been a pathetic apology, but it was masked with a blatant disregard for any sense of customer service.

He asked me what I wanted, to which I replied, “I want to understand why this happened and I don’t want this to be how my vacation ends).

I got nothin’.

So I walked away, but when I met up with my husband a few steps later and he noticed the workers rolling their eyes and obviously talking unkindly about me as I walked away, I marched myself back in there to confront the men.

WHen asked why they would do such a thing, he denied any such action. When I asked for a manager’s card, he said he was one of the managers. When he then tried to ‘make it right’ by offering me $3 for a gallon of gas, I was mortified.

Really?

I suppose you get what you pay for.

At the very end of the exchange, the second worker decided to pipe up in his company’s defense and said that they left windows open because ’90% of cards these days auto-lock once the engine is running, so it’s for everyone’s safety’…because leaving the trunk flung open isn’t protection enough against a lock-out?

Again, I don’t understand the lack of common sense.

I finally walked away, realizing this wasn’t how I wanted my vacation to end and coming to MY senses that I wasn’t getting anywhere with these people.

****

(Afternote: I’ve sat on this for a week or so and debated again whether of not to publish this, but ultimately decided to post because it met the criteria for everything else I post…to help YOU!)

Has anyone else in Nashville (or where you live) experienced something similar when it comes to a service like this?