Valet joyride: Travellers should do their homework, Acsa says

The Airports Company of South Africa (Acsa) said it is the responsibility of travellers to ensure that the third-party parking facilities they are using are trustworthy and providing the services they require.

This comes after Stephanie Walters made a grim discovery that an employee of Rainbow Parking, a company offering long-term parking at OR Tambo International Airport, used her car while she was in London.

Joyride

Dashcam footage showed that over four days, the employee at OR Tambo took Walters’ car on 27 joyrides, clocking 120km, including dropping  off his girlfriend at work and making a midnight trip to buy a KFC Streetwise 2 with pap.

Walters said she knew something was wrong when flour had been spilt in the car’s boot, and documents she had left on the back seat had been moved, according to a report by News24.

Acsa group executive enterprise security Mzwandile Petros told 702 that while they are “sorry” about what happened to Walters at the airport, the airports company does not do bookings for “third parties”.

“People can do bookings for our own parkings. We don’t handle other people’s business on our platforms. It’s (Rainbow Parking) contracted with us, it’s an independent service provider and most of the valets that are operating at the airport are not even parking the cars at our airport. They are actually picking up the cars from the passengers and then take them to the site where they are storing them.

“If Acsa is providing the long-term parking and there are other companies also providing services, you would know there is a competition immediately. If we come up with stringent rules of the companies operating in this space, it might actually be seen as we are pushing people to use our services,” Petros said.

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Taking responsibility

Petros said there are many companies that are operating at the airport, but customers must take responsibility for who they do business with.

“You need to be in a position to check the company that you are going to be using and giving your property to a person that you didn’t check is equally a problem,” Petros said.

Walters said she has been partly remunerated for the alleged illegal use of her car, the fuel consumption and also received refund for the valet service, but is still waiting for the mats that were allegedly stolen from the vehicle.

The owner of Rainbow Parking, Leon Alumbi, told News24 that disciplinary proceedings were under way against the employee.

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