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Roundabout Convertible Car

Parking - Malaga Airport

Malaga Airport - The risky business of parking.

This is what I found.

A series by Henry Bloomfield.

Parking at Malaga airport must be the cheapest in the world.  I have travelled extensively over most of the globe and relied on airport car parks for short and long term stays and found them generally good on the short term but expensive and unreliable on the long term because of the expensive nature of undercover space anywhere near an airport. I found that services varied from the point of exclusive, chauffeur driven pickups to and from the terminals to courtesy buses that were falling apart and driven by dangerous rally driver youngsters.  Malaga airport is a case in point. Judging from the condition of my car when it  came back I could not help but realize that it had been kept in the open despite assurances to the contrary.  I found caked mud on the underside and it it left me wondering just where on earth it had been kept.  I soon found out on a second time round when my daughter saw the car parked around the back streets of San Miguel Roundabout.  She had assumed I had come back earlier only to find that this was not so. The firm in question it  appears, offers indoors and parks outdoors - often just outside its own doors. It also turns out that despite charging for storage, large numbers of them had been parked in the free carpark at the airport which is now closed.

When we enquired as to why our almost new car had been abandoned, they said it was placed there for a short time whilst they reorganised their warehouse.  I dawned on me when I inspected their premises, that all they had or could get into the place was no more than 40 cars which considering the nature of the place could not possibly pay for a tenth of the rent. I enquired of one warehouse owner whose telephone number is still on the door and discovered the the average rental for 1000 square metres is in the order of 18,000 euros per month.  It needs no mathematician to work out that this space can only house 70 cars at the most and even 10 euros a day would not cover basic overheads. This led to a drive around the airport surrounds and saw parking lots which were as close as San Julian  and as far away as Churriana and Zapeta. I recognised one of the merchants I had been dealing with and discovered the scam. Any offer beneath 10 euros a day could obviously not have anything to do with indoor parking so I assumed none could be had at less than that. The money obviously had to be coming from other sources and it did not take long to work out that most of these warehouses are owned by car hire companies and what went into them was their own cars.  Having free space elsewhere or cheap fields miles away could work only if clients thought that their cars stayed at the airport warehouses. The scam was born and millions have been made at the expense of unsuspecting car owners who in the main left their cars "at the airport" for months on end. Any advertisement with a guarantee of indoor parking at the airport itself is therefore patently false. I also found that there is no insurance available from any company that will cover the drive from the car park to the terminals by any driver. The insurance cover available in Spain is only for the parking premises.  I rang four insurance companies, including Masbros, Bilbao and Helvetia and they confirmed that driver insurance cover outside the premises insured by them did not exist on the market.  Any accident outside the premises, we were categorically told, was the responsibility of the car owner who had to ensure that his or her policy also had to cover for another unknown driver. Luckily, most Spanish policies cover this event, but British ones do not and drivers usually have to be named.

A casual lucky find.

There were fortunately other outlets to follow in view of the desperate need for indoor parking in or near the airport. I noticed one of those indoor guarantee car parks and decided to investigate. There are a few across the road in San Julian which appeared to be large enough to take a 100 at least, but in fact the largest we found was not more than the 500 and 100 sq.mtrs. habitual sizes. The owners admitted that to guarantee indoor the price would have to be higher. When I tackled them on what happened when they reached their limit it did no take long to find out that they also had some fields near Churrriana.

Having given up, I decided that Malaga airport was no place for a nice car and least of all a convertible and it was only by chance that we saw and checked out the a newspaper advert. with the usual guarantee.I took no chances and having found out where it was, I ventured to take a close look at it.  I am glad I did, because it was an old lorry depot with all the fire fittings and pressure tower necessary to put out a fire of the sort a car can cause.  It was also the size of a major supermarket and could comfortably take on a few hundred cars.  I was a bit reticent about asking personal questions, but they were answered and it appears that rentals at the nearby industrial estate are about half of that at the airport next door  which enables them to make a  profit of  a sort on undercover which is all that they do.  It took us approximately seven minutes to and  from the San Miguel roundabout to the depot and just the security of the place was enough to make up our minds to entrust our dearly beloved BMW to them. I have also turned up without notice and it was encouraging to note that it was exactly where it had been parked. I have to say, that taking into account what I had gone through elsewhere and the horror stories I had also read about, it was a welcome relief to find the driver at the airport with a car that I was not sure I was ever going to see again.  I took out a year's parking with them for less than 800 euros.  I find myself loathe to recommend anything along the coast because of the crass variety of scams that seem to come your way all the time, but after seven solid months of  a damned good service, I even wonder how they can do it at the price of 5 euros a day for casual users. Their web page is www.malagaairportcarpark.com I could not find anything else at Malaga airport of the quality, indoor parking guarantee or maturity of drivers anywhere near the price. I am however hopeful that I will find alternatives and will continue to look.  If any reader has information leading to another genuine find, I would be grateful for the information and perhaps they can contact me on info@costabritishrestaurants.com

If II find another service of whichever kind, on the coast, worth passing on, you will find it on this site under my name.  I will only, however, only recommend, if after extensive and pertinent enquiries, it looks like very obvious value for money and the sort of place I could happily recommend to friends without fear of losing them.

Areas I shall be looking at on the coast..

Value for money restaurants.

Value for money hotels.

Value for money car hire

Value for money mechanical workshops.

Finally, if you love animals,please sign my petition to save the poor Malaga horses from unnecessary suffering. The Mayor refused to tackle the issue till after the Summer and possibly too late.  Join me and give those poor hard working horses a chance to survive this terrible heat. We are heading for 1000 and targetting 5000.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/cruelty-to-horses-in-malaga-spain/

 

 

 

 

 

About the Author

Henry Bloomfield is an oil engineer who studied business management in part time courses at the Literary City Institute in London.  He lives in Hove and has a second home in the Axarquia, Malaga Province.He is writing a book about "earning money when the time is wrong". His profession has made him have to live in more than a score of countries around the world for a year or two at a time. Writing, is a natural consquence.

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