Local: Customer convenience takes a flight

February 1, 2008
By Billy Dennis

This is the most important paragraph from Thursday’s HOINews story about the lack of pay phones at the Greater Peoria Regional Airport, while management at one of Peoria’s biggest shopping centers make sure customers have access:

“Not everybody has a cell phone or sometimes a battery goes dead and they need to make a call and it’s strictly for customers’ convenience,” said Jeff Case of Northwoods Mall.

Why the difference? The airport authority is a government entity. It operates under a command economy. It’s the only game in town, and it’s funding comes from taxes money that Peorians pay because they have to.

At Northwoods, they understand customers can take their business elsewhere. So that make sure customers are not inconveniences.

An airport without pay phones: It’s a concept that seems ridiculous to everyone except the people who run Peoria’s airport.  It’s not the sort of message you want to leave with people who just might be considering doing business here. It doesn’t exactly scream hi-tech.

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One Response to “ Local: Customer convenience takes a flight ”

  1. Mahkno on February 1, 2008 at 5:21 am

    It may not be entirely their fault:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/business/04phone.html?sq=AT&st=nyt&%20T%20Pay%20Phone=&scp=1&pagewanted=print

    AT&T to Exit Pay Phones as the Business Shrinks
    By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

    SAN ANTONIO, Dec. 3 (AP) — AT&T Inc. said on Monday that it would exit the rapidly shrinking pay phone business by the end of next year, before it becomes unprofitable.

    AT&T will sell 65,000 pay phones, in prisons and in public places, in its original 13-state area before the end of 2008, a spokesman, Michael Coe, said.

    The company decided to leave pay phones, a small part of its business, before they reached the point of being unprofitable, he said.

    AT&T executives said they would try to sell as many of the pay phones to independent operators as possible; those left unsold will be removed.

    “This business has been shrinking rapidly,” Mr. Coe said.

    He added that the company had been phasing out pay phones by not renewing contracts as they have expired. “We’ve known for a while that we would exit,” Mr. Coe said.

    The number of pay phones nationwide has shrunk to one million in the last decade from 2.6 million. AT&T had roughly 400,000 pay phones in 1998, but there has been a rapid decline in the business since then.

    The BellSouth Corporation had exited the business before AT&T acquired it at the end of 2006, as has Qwest Communications International.

    AT&T has 67.3 million wireless subscribers.