Interim Rental Car Center Opens at Oakland International Airport this Weekend
-- Facility is Part of Airport’s $1.6 Billion Expansion Program --
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Cyndy Johnson, (510) 563-2820
Rosemary Barnes, (510) 563-2892
After Hours, (510) 563-3360
Oakland, CA, August 19, 2003 – The new interim rental car center at Oakland International Airport (OAK) opens to Bay Area visitors at midnight on Sunday, August 24, allowing for construction to begin on the airport’s terminal expansion project.
The facility will temporarily house the operations of the eight on-airport national rental car companies for the next three to four years. A 15,000-square foot customer service building is located on the 12-acre rental car center site at the airport’s historic North Field. Construction of the $14 million facility was partially funded by a $10 per car rental customer facility charge. Rental car company operations were previously located near the airport’s Hourly Parking Lot.
“This facility opening marks a significant change to the look of Oakland International Airport,” said Director of Aviation Steve Grossman. “With the rental car facilities consolidated under one roof at this new temporary location, we can now break ground on a permanent, seven-level, 6,000-space rental car/public parking garage that will be conveniently located across from the airport terminals.”
Customers of Avis, Budget, Dollar, Enterprise, Fox, Hertz, National and Thrifty will be transported from the terminals to the rental car center via a common-use shuttle bus. Customers will return their rental cars at the rental car center and board the rental car shuttle to the terminals. The shuttle bus ride should take less than 10 minutes each way, however, during peak travel periods the ride may take up to 15 minutes each way.
Off-airport rental car company customers must also use the common-use shuttle bus for transportation to and from the airport terminals, using the rental car center as their transfer point since individual rental car shuttles are no longer permitted on airport roadways. Customers are urged to call ahead to their off-airport rental car company from the terminals to arrange the transfer.
The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company, based in Pleasanton, Calif., was the general contractor for this project.
The Airport Development Program is an umbrella program for 18 expansion and improvement projects. Program highlights include the addition of 12 passenger gates, a six-lane parkway linking the airport and the community of Bay Farm Island (Alameda) with Interstate 880, and a multi-level parking facility. The $1.6 billion expansion program is expected to take five to seven years to complete.
Oakland International Airport has served the San Francisco Bay Area for more than 75 years and is responsible for $4.5 billion in economic activity annually in the San Francisco Bay Area, generating over 70,000 jobs for the region. Oakland International is a revenue division of the Port of Oakland, an independent department of the City of Oakland, and served 12.7 million passengers and handled more than 600,000 metric tons of air cargo in 2002, making it the second fastest growing major airport in the nation.
The airport has 200 flights a day on 12 domestic and international carriers to 41 nonstop destinations, including Atlanta, the Hawaiian Islands, the New York area, Washington, D.C., and Mexico and seasonal service to the Azores (Portugal) and Costa Rica.
Oakland International consistently has the fewest weather-related flight delays in the Bay Area. Since 1992, the airport and the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) have jointly operated a dedicated shuttle bus that meets every BART system train at the nearby Coliseum station. Once at the airport, travelers can tune to 1700AM for current airport traffic, parking and security information and watch for roadway signage at the entrance to the airport that will indicate which parking lots still have available space. Visit the airport’s web site at www.oaklandairport.com for more information.
