It Was Going To Happen...

The first "Spring Break Getaway Weekend" of 2009 is in the books. And considering the chaos caused by the weather Saturday night into Sunday morning, we would have to consider this first phase a success.

Friday afternoon, when the initial wave of vacationers headed for the airports, we were blessed with good weather and relatively light traffic. We managed to control the flow of business well enough that no major problems were reported.

Saturday morning was another big push that again went surprisingly well. All of our vehicles kept moving throughout the morning and again later in the afternoon. If there was any question about the strength of our retail segment, this was a day to put those doubts temporarily to rest.

Sunday...there is always ONE DAY. Our chauffeurs, dispatchers, and reservation staff did the best they could. However, the weather was just too much. When we realized early in the week that snow was a possibility, we began cutting back on the number of reservations we were looking to book. The initial weather forecast called for rain, and then rain with some snow mixed in. As we got into the later part of the week, we started hearing the possibility of accumulations ranging from one to three inches. Still nothing to get too excited about, but we cut back our reservation limits further. By late Friday into early Saturday morning, we were hearing anywhere from three to eight inches of snow was possible. At this point, we shut down reservations altogether for our rush periods, which left us at about 65% of our normal capacity. And then the skies opened up. For the most part, our chauffeurs fought their way through the slop and slush, although we did lose a few in the northern suburbs because in some areas side streets weren't plowed until later in the morning. It was just a matter of man versus the elements, and in a few cases, the elements won. But the final tally for the weekend was almost a thousand trips going to the airports and less than twenty reportable issues.

Once Spring Break is over, we'll sit down with all the data pertaining to travel times, weather, and chauffer issues and try to correct any problems we can in an effort to make next year run a little more smoothly in order to give our clients the most hassle-free travel experience possible.