Kerbside or inside: where to meet your driver

When you book a transfer, somebody has to decide where you and the driver physically meet. It sounds trivial. It is the single most common cause of a stressful first ten minutes.

There are two arrangements and they suit different situations.

Kerbside

The driver waits nearby, and when you are through the terminal and ready you tell them, or they see your flight land and text you. You walk out to the arrivals kerb and they pull up.

Faster in the ordinary case, and cheaper, because no parking is involved.

It needs your telephone to be on and reachable, and it needs you to be able to manage your bags to the kerb without help.

At Hopkins this works well outside the evening peak. The arrivals level is compact, the covered walkway means you are not standing in snow, and the wait is usually a couple of minutes.

Meeting inside

The driver parks, comes into the terminal and waits at the arrivals area with a name board. You find a person rather than a vehicle.

Calmer, always. Costs more, because airport parking is added at cost.

Worth it in four situations, in the desk's experience:

1. 1. Anyone travelling with children. Getting a family, a pushchair and the bags to a kerb while

watching a telephone is a job too many.

1. 2. A first visit to the city. Not knowing which door you are meant to come out of is a genuinely

unpleasant feeling after eight hours in the air.

1. 3. An elderly passenger or anybody who would rather be met. This is what the arrangement is for.
2. 4. Late arrivals, after about ten at night. The terminal is quiet, the kerb is dark and cold for

half the year, and having somebody there is worth the parking.

The evening peak

Between roughly five and seven in the evening the arrivals level at Hopkins gets busy enough that kerbside becomes fiddly. Traffic officers move vehicles along, so a driver may have to circle, and circling with a passenger standing on the kerb in February is nobody's idea of a good arrangement.

For arrivals in that window, meeting inside is usually the better answer even when it would not be at any other hour.

What the driver needs from you

Your telephone number, working and switched on. More rides go wrong because a phone stayed in flight mode than for any other reason.

The flight number, so the operator tracks the actual landing rather than the schedule.

A rough sense of your bags. A driver expecting hand luggage and meeting four large cases has a problem that could have been solved at the booking stage.

The grace period

After a flight actually lands, the included wait is 45 minutes on domestic arrivals and 60 on international ones, which covers a normal walk through the terminal, a normal wait at the belt and immigration on an ordinary day. It is on the pricing page with everything else.

Beyond that, waiting is charged by the operator in fifteen minute blocks. If you know you will be slow, for example travelling with somebody who needs more time, tell the desk and the wait is built into the quote rather than appearing afterwards.

The other airports

Burke Lakefront and Cuyahoga County are small general aviation fields where the whole question disappears: there is one door and the driver is at it.

Akron Canton is a compact terminal where kerbside works comfortably at any hour.

Choosing when you book

The booking form asks how you want to be met, and the quote shows both arrangements where the difference matters. If you are unsure, say so in the notes and the desk will suggest one based on your arrival time and party.