Bristol Airport has confirmed action has been taken after a car park valet was caught red-handed taking a joyride behind the wheel of a top-end BMW. It appears the valet forgot to turn the dashcam off when he took the car for a very fast spin around the Silver Zone car park.
The owner of the car Rob Butler was outraged when he saw what had been going on while he was away in Greece. He shared the dashcam footage on social media, asking for users to “find his name”, posting “#silverzonebristol is this the way you allow a staff member to drive my car.”
The footage shows a car park valet approaching the high-end vehicle. The dashcam records as an unauthorised driver revs up the powerful engine and heads around the car park at speed, including a straight section where the car is accelerated.
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Also sharing the video on YouTube, Mr Butler posted: “dangerous driving by staff member at #silverzone #Bristolairport. He forgot to turn my dashcam off”.
To add insult to injury, Mr Butler later posted on an auto Facebook group that someone had written “nice car” in the collected dust across the driver side door. He asked for help in removing the message, posting: “Anyone know if it’s possible to remove marring from a ceramic coating in an isolated area.
"My car was at Bristol Airport for a week whilst away and collected dust and someone decided to write NICE CAR across the driver side door. It’s not bad but the marring is noticeable in the sunlight, he might as well have used a scouer to write it.”
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A spokesperson for Bristol Airport said: “Bristol Airport apologises to the customer regarding the level of service received on this occasion, which was completely unacceptable. We take feedback such as this seriously and once we were aware of the customer’s complaint, we investigated thoroughly with the third-party provider and the necessary remedial actions have been taken.
“We are working with the business partner involved to ensure the normal high standards of customer service are maintained when customers leave their cars with us. Customers can be reassured this is an isolated incident and we have liaised with the customer directly to resolve the issue.”
The airport confirmed that for Silver Zone parking customers are required to leave their car keys. This is so parking valets can park the customers cars in the on-site valet parked area.