(EMAILWIRE.COM, December 06, 2012 ) NSW, Australia -- Any holiday travelers who are planning to rent a car may very well be out of luck when they arrive, unless necessary assistance is given, as the Superstorm Sandy helped to create a rental-car shortage.
The storm damaged or literally washed away thousands of cars, and that includes rental company cars. The vehicular losses have been compounded by the rising demand, as so many need to find ways to make it to work (or simply get around).
Thanksgiving and Christmas are already busy rental periods, and the lingering mass transit problems caused by the storm have simply compounded the overall difficult for supply to meet current demand.
For the most part, reservations are being honors; however, there are those companies who had their fleet weakened by being hit by the storm. Some that are and will be available will likely carry a heavy premium.
Tadd Rosenfeld, who is flying into New York on Wednesday could not find a car with any of the major companies. U-Save was the single company that had a car, and wanted nearly $350 per day for it. That cost was more than the plane ticket Rosenfeld paid to get to the city.
“Showing up to Thanksgiving in a U-Haul is worse than showing up with an escort. But at $19 a day, it’s tempting,” says Rosenfeld, CEO of TeamLauncher.com, an outsourcing company based in Miami.
In order to help with the current shortage, rental companies have been driving in thousands of extra vehicles from other parts of the country.
Even the current influx will be stretched to the limit, as thousands of people are still without vehicles for the foreseeable future.
Insurance companies such as State Farm, Progressive, and New Jersey Manufacturers, told the AP that in the days that followed the storm, they received 38,000 car-damage claims. Other companies declined to release their claims.
“It’s an unusual situation,” says Neil Abrams of the Abrams Consulting Group, which focuses on the car rental industry. “Unfortunately, you can’t go out and buy cars for a demand spike. You don’t know how long it will last.”
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