Ok, so we are past Halloween now. And that means the busy holiday travel season is just a few weeks away. And if you’re planning to fly out of Charlotte Douglas this year, you will be paying more to park your car. Beginning next week, long-term parking increases from $10 to $12 a day. Daily decks are almost doubling, from $12 to $20 a day. For more, we turn now to Tony Mecia of the Charlotte Ledger Business Newsletter for our segment BizWorthy.
Marshall Terry: Tony, why is the airport jacking up prices?
Tony Mecia: Well, Marshall, the airport says that it's raising the prices because they're busier than they have been. This is expected to be the busiest year for passengers. They're on track to surpass their numbers from 2019. They say that the number of people driving to the airport has increased, that spots are more scarce. They say they've made upgrades to the parking experience — paperless parking, contactless. You know, you can now reserve ahead of time — which incidentally, they're suggesting that everybody do, because you'll find cheaper rates there. And that these new increases, they say, really only apply to the drive-up rates.
It remains to be seen whether the reserve-ahead rates go up, too. And then the other reason why they're raising prices is because they can. I mean, it's essentially, a monopoly. If you are driving to the airport, you don't have a lot of other options. There's not a lot of competition that would ordinarily keep prices down. So really, I think it's all those things coming together.
Terry: Now is the timing here on purpose? I mean, right before the holiday rush?
Mecia: Well, I guess the timing isn't accidental. The airport says that it's been a couple of years since it last raised parking prices. And it says that the new prices that start on Nov. 6, that those are going to be in line with other large airports.
Terry: Well, let's stay at the airport for a moment. A Ledger reader asked why Charlotte Douglas is one of the few big airports that doesn't use Clear for security screening. What is Clear, and why isn't Charlotte using it?
Mecia: Clear is a premium security screening service that is at 23 out of 25 of the largest U.S., airports — but not Charlotte and not Philadelphia, which incidentally are two American Airlines hubs. It's $189 a year, and it lets you just zip through the security line with no waiting. Charlotte doesn't have it, apparently because American Airlines, which is a major tenant in Charlotte, prefers that people go through TSA pre-check if they want to get through security faster. And it just so happens that Clear is partially owned by American’s competitors United and Delta.
American doesn't, I think, want to have Clear at its airports. It's testing out something it calls American Airlines Photo ID, which is similar to Clear. It encourages people to use TSA pre-check, which is $89 for five years. So we were trying to answer a question from a reader about with the terminal lobby being under construction, are they going to put in a Clear lane? We asked the airport. The airport said it would look at it. It would like to put in some sort of premium service in the new airport lobby, when that is finished in 2025.
Terry: All right. Over to online loan marketer LendingTree now. The Charlotte-based company this week reported its revenue was down 35% in the third quarter year over year. It's cut its workforce by about a third in the past year. What's driving this, and what's the outlook?
Mecia: LendingTree says because of higher interest rates and persistent inflation that that is really cutting down on the number of mortgages, credit cards, auto loans. And just so people understand the way LendingTree makes money is that it steers customers toward banks and insurance companies, who then pay LendingTree for generating that customer business. Doug Lebda, the CEO, said on a call this week that he has never seen all of those markets be down, kind of at the same time. But he was optimistic about 2024 saying that there are some signs that things are going to pick up a little bit better next year.
Terry: And LendingTree isn't just cutting workers. They're letting at least one prominent local sponsorship deal lapse. How much were they paying to be on the Hornets' jerseys? And who's taking their place?
Mecia: Yeah, the LendingTree logo used to be on the patch on the front of the Charlotte Hornets jerseys. And that was a marketing deal that was estimated to be about $5 million a year. That space has now been taken by a company called Feastibles, which is the snack company owned by North Carolina-based YouTube star Mr. Beast.
Terry: Finally, you got some feedback to a story we talked about last week, and that is what to do with the 40-foot-by-40-foot light display known as Quadrille that was on display in uptown Charlotte for nearly 30 years before being taken down recently. So what did some of your readers suggest should happen to it?
Mecia: One suggested putting it on some silos by the Music Factory. And others said, hey, why don't you put it on the old PTL building in Fort Mill, spruce that place up? And somebody said, how about Eastland Mall? They're redeveloping that. Could it go out there? And then really, Marshall, to bring things full circle, several people said, could it go at the airport? So maybe we could put it above some expedited security screening lanes. Or maybe the airport could use some of this new money it's got for parking and put it on a parking deck. It's coming down from the old Duke Energy building because that is being redeveloped into apartments.
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