Free parking at JFK if you can wait for a call
USA TODAY, 6/7/2007
NEW YORK (AP) — Free parking? At an airport?
Just in time for the summer travel season, when passenger volume and terminal hassles hit their peak, New York's busiest airport is offering a "cellphone parking lot" for people picking up arriving passengers.
Instead of driving in circles or trying to seem invisible in illegal spaces, they can park free and wait for the traveler's cellphone call to summon them to the pickup point.
Cellphone parking has not been seen previously in New York, and "it's a fairly new phenomenon at airports around the country," said Pasquale DiFulco, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns and manages JFK, Newark Liberty and LaGuardia airports.
The system went into effect at JFK just before Memorial Day.
There are no immediate plans for it at Newark-Liberty or LaGuardia. "It's a question of real estate, of having the space for it," DiFulco said.
Cellphone parking at JFK is one of several innovations the Port Authority is implementing as its airports gird for an expected 30 million customers this summer.
Valet parking for travelers — already in use at Newark Liberty — is to begin later this year at JFK, using a large parking lot located near the AirTrain terminal.
Other improvements include new "welcome centers," replacing the existing ground transportation counters, and 200 more "customer care representatives," identifiable by their red jackets, to assist travelers at counters, entrances and exits, even getting through U.S. Customs and Transportation Security checkpoints.
Newark Liberty and LaGuardia will have 5,000 new seats for people waiting. There will be new signs, flight information monitors, new seats and floors on the JFK AirTrain's 32 cars, and more food and concession facilities beyond security checkpoints, the authority said.