I just read where the restaurant Soiree and Chef Anita is complaining about not doing any
business at the airport because of a bad location and blames the city for it. Says the city used
her to get support for the airport vote and now she has been relegated to a section of the
airport where there’s no traffic.
I got news for her and everyone else. There’s not going to be enough traffic for 100 new
restaurants to succeed in a fly over airport with no hub airline.
She needs to get back to Jason Parson who put the deal together with the concession company
and also participated in the public relations to get the voters to vote yes and is believed to
receive a % of the revenues generated. This is just a rumor but should be investigated.
Guess what Anita? There are no local Italian restaurants there even though many of us (Italian
Gardens, Jasper’s, Cascone’s) tried to get a spot. We’ve all been in business 50+ years and got
nothing and I guess it was for the best since you’re getting screwed.
My Daughter and I arrived from LA on a Tuesday night around 7 and none of the restaurants
were open except one and it had 2 customers.
We need snack bars and c-stores not restaurants. Grab a hot dog or a piece of pizza and a
bottle of water and take off. There isn’t lots of layovers at KCI.
Another problem that I’ve spoken of before is leaving departing passengers who park in the
economy lot (which is what most people do) at the arrival gate not the departure gate which is
another design flaw of the new $2,000,000,000.00 airport. You’d think they would make it as
convenient as possible for people but NOOOOOOOO.
Here is the final response from Joe McBride at the KC Aviation Dept.
John:
Thanks for the reply and feedback from your experience elsewhere. Please understand that
customer convenience was at the forefront in design other aspects of the facility. I’m not a
designer or budget person, but my guess is here and at other airports, cost-benefit analysis is
done on features. Some features would be nice to have, but the cost in price, functionality,
unintended impacts, environment, etc. can drive decisions. The new terminal and garage are
not perfect, but they are far above the three-terminal system that was designed prior to the
passenger screening requirement. Yes, the single roadway level afforded an opportunity to
favor our on-airport parking customers. The vertical separation of departures and arrivals
vehicular traffic improved a lot of situations for customers and tenants alike, but necessitated
leveling the playing field with other commercial vehicles.
Regarding concessions, please realize that all tenants are given flight schedules by airline and
they schedule unit and employee hours with that information. We ask that units be open when
flights operate, from a customer service standpoint. Passenger flow ebbs and flows, so
hopefully more were to come or the unit was about to close.
So here you go folks. Hoodwinked again by our city leaders. Just like the lottery, riverboats and
new stadiums.
When will we ever learn?
