Tourists may pay 11% more to rent cars at Chicago airports
By Fran Spielman City Hall Reporter fspielman@suntimes.com January 25, 2012 12:23AM
A row of rental cars are parked below a sign for Hertz Corp. at Denver International Airport Monday September 12, 2005. Ford Motor Co. may sell Hertz Corp., the largest U.S. car-rental company, to buyout investors including Clayton, Dubilier & Rice Inc. and Carlyle Group for about $15 billion to raise cash for its unprofitable North American auto business, people familiar with the matter said. Photographer: Matthew Staver/Bloomberg News
Updated: January 26, 2012 3:07PM
O’Hare and Midway Airport passengers would pay 11.1 percent more to rent a car — on top of the $8 and $3.75 fees respectively imposed last year to bankroll rental car campuses at the two airports—under a surprise proposal by an influential alderman.
Ald. Michael Zalewski (23rd), chairman of the City Council’s Aviation Committee, said the “concession recovery fee” would allow rental car companies to recoup costs paid to the city for the right to operate at O’Hare and Midway.
Ten percent of the revenues would go the companies. The remaining 1.1 percent—roughly $1.2 million-a-year—would go to the city to be used on airport projects of the city’s choosing, the alderman said.
“It won’t affect city residents. Ninety-nine percent of the people who rent cars are from out of town,” Zalewski said.
Hertz spokesman Richard Broome said the pass-through fee is a matter of fairness — for rental car companies and for Chicagoans.
“Chicago residents already pay these concession fees when they travel around the country and rent cars. Now, the people who fly into Chicago from elsewhere will also pay these fees. All this does is bring O’Hare and Midway into line with every other airport in the country,” he said.
Broome said he is not concerned that the 11.1 percent fee — on top of the $8 and $3.75 fees at O’Hare and Midway respectively imposed last year — would hurt business.
“Many other cities have these types of add-ons. Customers who look at their car rental bills always see these charges. It’s is not a deterrent to renting cars,” he said.
Enterprise currently charges customers a base fee of $85.92-a-day to rent an economy car and $114.84-a-day when taxes and fees are tacked on.
The new 11.1 percent would be tacked onto the base rate. That would amount to a daily fee of $9.53 for an economy car, $15.63 for a standard SUV and $16.19 for a mini-van or premium car.
Last year, the City Council approved then-Mayor Richard M. Daley’s plan to add $8 to the cost of renting a car at O’Hare to bankroll a $393 million facility that will consolidate airport rental car companies into a central location to make way for new runways. A $3.75 fee was imposed at Midway.
At the time, officials described the $8 “customer facility charge” as a starting point and said the O’Hare fee would go higher if the people mover system was extended to the new rental car campus instead of simply consolidating the companies’ shuttle bus operations.
Last fall, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration awarded a contract that appears to set the stage for an even higher rental car fee at O’Hare.
The city hired a consultant to design a new five-level economy parking structure at the southeast corner of Mannheim and Zemke Roads that would be shared by rental cars and public parking.
The $7.1 million contract calls for Transystems Corp. to draft detailed plans and “probable construction costs” for a parking structure with convenient access to an existing Metra station and “a new station for an extended” airport people mover system.
Comments Click here to view or make a comment