Geneva Airport Car Hire - nightmare new changes!

Posted by IanLocke on January 26, 2009 under Ski Blog News, Ski Travel | Read the First Comment

Oh Lordy! I’ve historically sung the praises of renting on the Swiss side of Geneva airport rather than the French side, but with the recent relocation of the Car Hire Desks and Pick-up location for hire cars, I’m rapidly changing my tune!

Car Hire Desks moved to far extreme of the terminal

So, firstly then, those clever Swiss have moved the actual car hire desks to a wonderful, sparkling new car hire area at the farthest possible extreme of the airport - so you turn right as you come out of Arrivals, rather than left as previously. Turn right, and just keep going, and going… past the new stylish Montreux Jazz Cafe / Bar (why, in an airport?), then the Post Office, then keep going a bit more, and you’re there!

A lovely place to be I’m sure, which you’re going to be for a while, as this lovely-looking new facility hasn’t speeded the car hire process up any - so they still ask you for all the details they asked you for when you booked, try to persuade you to upgrade, try to flog you some Excess Insurance…

Now hop on the Shuttle Bus…

Half an hour later therefore, armed with those hard-earned car keys, you’re then told you need to hop on a shuttle bus, which will take you to the Long Term Car Park P51, where the cars are now situated - not in the rather handy multi-storey across the road from the airport terminal as they were previously! The shuttle bus then seems to set off when it’s full, so little rush to get on there unless there are already a few people on it.

Roughly an hour after you first started the process, you have loaded up your hire car, and you’re on your way - probably 30 minutes later than you would have been with the previous system!

So, add an extra 30 minutes on the way back, and that should be fine - or will it?

Actually no, the drop-off process also now seems to involve an inspection of the car, entering the details on a handheld terminal, and then if you “pass”, you’re allowed to leave your car - by which time you’ve probably missed the shuttle bus!!

When the shuttle bus does therefore arrive, a nice queue has built up, so both you and your luggage can’t get on the bus, so you have to load the luggage into the luggage trailer, then squash into the bus itself, for the 5-minute drive to the terminal. Or almost the terminal, as it drops you outside the sparkling new car hire area, which of course is miles away from the Check-in desks, where you want to be!

And of course, you’re now late, so I hope you’ve got a wheelie case with inline wheels to skoot you as quickly as possible to the check-in desks.

Conclusion - leave yourself loads (and I mean LOADS) of time!

What more can I say - if you do rent from the Swiss side of Geneva Airport, leave yourself lots and lots of time for returning your car and checking-in. Me, I’m going to see if renting French side is as bad as it used to be, so will report back soon…

Oh yes, there did seem to be ONE benefit to the cars needing to be dropped-off at the Long Term Parking, which is that there’s an Avia Petrol station immediately before the car park, so you can return your car hire fully fuelled. This is, however, unmanned, and when we passed through, the automatic pumps were not accepting either cash or credit cards, which would seem to be rather a disadvantage! [easily solved though by getting back on the road heading into Geneva, then take the first turn following signs for 'Bardonex', until you reach a couple of 'normal' petrol stations. ]