MIAMI NOVEMBER 6, 2019, — The Miami International Airport parking concessionaire, Airport Parking Associates, Inc, may lose the contract it has held for more than 20 years despite having won in evaluation scores with all of the selection committee, except for one of the members that gave APA a lower score than its competitor LAZ Parking, a company that according to our research lacks experience in airport parking.
Ironically APA was ranked with the lowest in experience by the same member of the selection committee, who seems to have not taken into consideration the more than 20 years that the MIA parking lot has operated as well as 70 other airports in the Nation.
According to details in our investigation, this member who gave the low rating in “experience” has a tendency to be late for committee meetings, “it is not surprising that they could not make a well-informed decision during the process of selection” an airport official told us, on the basis that we not reveal their name.
This official revealed to us that, “he spends most of his time sending text messages on his cell phone while the committee is in session”.
The selected firm LAZ parking, lacks experience in airports, experience in the State of Florida and only have one airport in the national market of the United States that could be compared with MIA.
Recently LAZ submitted proposals at the airports of Tampa and Fort Lauderdale, and did not even manage to be among the final companies selected.
For our part, researching this contract, we have learned that Airport Parking Associates, is a LOCAL “Join Venture” between WRP and SPPLUS, that is, a local operator, operating as a small ACDBE certified company that employs 100 employees of whom all live and work in Miami-Dade County. APA has complied with the Living Wage Ordinance since its creation, employees have worked an average of 15 years and earn an average starting salary of $17.06 per hour.
APA has increased revenues by almost $13 million since they were hired by Miami-Dade Aviation.
According to sources in the Aviation Department, Airport Parking Associates “has an impeccable track record regarding its financial and audit books and there have never been discrepancies.”
In terms of experience APA operates more than 70 parking concessions in airports in the national market while its competitor LAZ operates only 1 or 2 similar in size to MIA and does not operate any airport in the state of Florida.
The question is: If there is a company that has been a member of Miami International Airport for more than 20 years, and has never had problems, why change?
We do not know what Miami-Dade Aviation’s final recommendation to the Board of Commissioners will be, but we feel that regardless of the recommendation, the Board must first investigate the company LAZ before ratifying an agreement for them to obtain the parking contract of MIA.
We will continue to investigate this and other problems that are occurring at the Airport and other Miami-Dade departments, in order to alert the commissioners about these important decisions.
I have worked at the airport for over 30 years and this article should be read by all of the decision makers