Airport to Discuss Disney Shuttles

ORLANDO (Orlando Sentinel) – After a three-month delay, the board that oversees Orlando International Airport on Wednesday will publicly discuss the future of Disney's Magical Express shuttle and baggage service. But the details of the program's future are still being hammered out. Though Greater Orlando Aviation Authority Chairman Jeffry Fuqua would not elaborate on the issues, the free service – which has become a model nationally for moving passengers and luggage – has been controversial because of its impact on rental-car companies and taxi and limo services. Some of those companies say they have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in business, an outcome airport administrators feared even before the service began. On Wednesday, the board expects to hear a presentation from its consultant Michael Brown. It will be the first time the airport will publicly present any information about Magical Express since the board delayed its original meeting to do so in December. Since Magical Express began in May, it has transported more than 1.1 million passengers and their luggage between the Disney resort and the air-port. Rental-car companies and taxi and limo services pay a concession fee to the airport each month based on how much business they do. That means the airport can lose money if those businesses ex-perience a downturn. Disney said in December that the service boosted airport revenue by $1.6 million and has streamlined airport operations so well that it could delay the need for a costly second terminal building. Disney World President Al Weiss met with Fuqua last month on the matter. Threats have loomed for months that Disney could stop the service if the airport makes it too expensive to operate. The 18-month pilot project – recently touted by Disney President and CEO Robert Iger – ends in December.

As early as January 2005 – about four months before Magical Express began – then-Executive Director Bill Jennings and other senior airport staffers expressed concern about the services' anticipated impact. Minutes from a meeting of airport staffers, airline executives and a Disney executive, show that Jennings told the airlines he expected the service to reach 2 million passengers a year and it could harm rental-car companies. As part of the agreement negotiated in 2004, Disney pays the airport 50 cents per passenger. Jennings said he tried to negotiate a clause in the contract that would allow the airport to raise that fee after the first six months of the service, but did not prevail, according to the minutes. The airport's esti-mated lost revenue per passenger was $7.70, according to the minutes of the Jan. 25, 2005, Air-lines/Airport Affairs Committee. That figure was arrived at by a consultant who analyzed rental-car data. Disney paid the airport $589,538 in passenger fees from May to December, according to airport records. Those records show that June was the service's busiest month last year with 168,819 passengers. Its single busiest days came on Oct. 1 and on the day after Christmas, when it carried more than 10,000 people, the records show. On most days, however, 3,000 to 5,000 people use the free service.

This is truly an amazing story. Let's see if I have this straight.

• Disney builds a giant resort destination that puts Orlando on the map.
• The airport grows to handle the increased traffic (through taxes and fees collected from businesses who pay for access to their passengers, as well as other means, including airlines)
• Dozens, if not hundreds, of satellite (parasite) companies spring up to take advantage of the new transportation industry in Florida.
• Rental car companies and taxis take cash from the toursists who have come to Orlando to visit Walt Disney World.

So, Disney conducts a massive marketing campaign to attract visitors to their parks. It works and visitors come from far and wide via their favorite airline. Once they get here, Disney decides that they would like to pick them up at the airport for FREE. Suddenly, the 3rd party transportation system begins to collapse, no longer propped up on the bloated fees and earnings it had been munching from the Disney tourists.

It's so efficient that the airport can function without costly expansion. Bottom line, the airport and the transportation companies have a lock on the transportation options available to the Disney tourist. How much does each airline get for delivering each passenger to the airport? Anything? They are bringing a large number of potential airport mall shopppers, yes? The airport should not be a profit center. Most have malls in them already anyway, so what are they doing with all that rental money?

I don't have any sympathy for lost revenue at the airport or transportation companies, whose usefulness has been diminished in the face of a newer and better service. If you provide a service nobody wants or needs anymore, whose fault is that? Did horse washers sue Henry Ford back in the day? Change or die. I can see a day in the future when kids will say "You had to pay for a ride from the airport? That's not fair. They droppped you there in the first place. Why should it cost you to leave?" Anyone ever try to walk home from an airport? Good luck.

Maybe the fee structure is backwards. Airlines should pay to drop people off and so should Disney. It makes about as much sense as paying to pick them up. The airport is saying, "We have an inventory of people who need transportation. Give us $.50 each and you can take them." Where do they get their inventory? Airlines and individuals. eBay takes a cut from the auction lister to list an item AND a cut of the final fee. Is this where the airport is going to go?

I'm sure it's very complicated, but the rental car companies and the taxis need to realize that their business models are now flawed. They are no longer the only game in town to get from A to B.