Hertz staff abandoned post at Syracuse airport, so people just took random cars (report)

Employees abandoned their post at a car rental company at the Syracuse airport, leading to chaos, according to a new report.
CBS News reports the bizarre incident occurred at Syracuse Hancock International Airport this past summer. Hertz staff walked away from their desk, leaving at least 20 customers to fend for themselves when they showed up to pick up their reserved vehicles.
Their solution? Take any car you can find keys for, apparently.
Denver Mayor Mike Johnston confirmed to CBS that he was among the group of travelers who showed up when the rental car company was “closed” on July 20. Johnston said he was there to take his son to a summer program in Syracuse and had a reservation with Hertz, but no employees were at the counter.
“So we took one we thought was for us,” the Denver mayor said. “There were a bunch of folks picking up cars… But not the right cars.”
Johnston said they looked around and found Hertz cars with keys in them and drove away. Johnston told CBS he later found out he took the wrong car and returned it, exchanging it for another.
A complaint filed with the airport similarly said other “customers with pre-booked reservations looked through cars in the Hertz section of the garage and just took random cars that had keys in them.”
The Syracuse Regional Airport Authority said a review of security camera footage showed Hertz staff left the rental counter at 7:13 p.m., more than six hours before they were supposed to leave. Airport officials said they tried to call and text local Hertz workers but received no response, according to CBS.
One employee returned at 8:25 p.m. but left again 16 minutes later, a report from the airport authority said. Per the rental agency’s contract with the airport, staff were required to be on duty until at least 1:28 a.m., an hour after the day’s last flight arrived.
Jamie Line, director of external communications for Hertz, told syracuse.com | The Post-Standard that the employees were fired shortly after the company learned of the incident.
“We regret the unfortunate situation that impacted several customers at our Syracuse Airport location in July. The employees on duty were immediately terminated and we resumed normal operations the next day. We are committed to providing an exceptional car rental experience at Syracuse Airport and across our entire network of locations,” Line said in a statement.
Hertz did not provide any other details, but the incident occurred a day after a global technology outage disrupted flights at the Syracuse airport and other businesses in Central New York and beyond. Hertz told CNN that its systems were not affected by the July 19 outage, but the company saw an influx in customers as travel was affected along the East Coast, leading to some employees working longer hours that day.
Hertz is one of six car rental companies at the Syracuse airport, along with Alamo/National, Avis, Budget, Dollar, and Enterprise. Airport statistics show July is the busiest month of the year at Hancock, with nearly 10,000 passengers a day in July 2024.
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