JetBlue recently announced they will begin flying to and from O’hare Airport starting in January. (Woohoo!!! It’s about time.) This announcement got me thinking about JetBlue and its overnight popularity among consumers. Twenty years ago, American, United, and Delta dominated the airline industry, limiting consumer choice and creating a virtual monopoly. Today, JetBlue has created an efficient, low-cost approach with improved customer service that has shaken up an industry mired in profit loss and status quo. The question begs, was there a paradigm shift that enabled this transition?

The Internet, plain and simple, is the shift that changed the airline industry. With the Internet, the world has shrunk. Consumers can easily know all of their options for flying—price, class, location, etc. They’ve become empowered. (Remember the days when you had to call or visit a travel agent just to book a flight?) Powerful search engines and sites like SideStep and Farecast have brought visibility to discount carriers that lack major airlines’ marketing budgets. Consumers have learned that they can find affordable fares. With the Internet, these new airlines can keep their costs down making flying from one coast to the other coast a cinch. As the Southwest ads say, “The country just got smaller”.

Like the airline industry, the parking industry is undergoing a paradigm shift. Although fragmented, parking is led by industry titans, Standard Parking and Central Parking. These companies manage many of the parking facilities in the United States. If you head out to a ballgame, aside from finding meter parking, you’re pretty much limited to these parking operators and their rates. The reality is, however, that there are millions of unused parking spaces all around us, such as empty driveways and retail shopping lots that can be had for less money and closer proximity. What the industry needs is a marketplace to enable this.

ParkWhiz is dedicated to creating this marketplace. Once the ParkWhiz Marketplace launches, the parking industry will change forever. The ParkWhiz Marketplace will allow you to find parking where you want it, when you want it and how you want it. It’s just a matter of time before the JetBlue of parking comes to a city near you!

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