Travelers make their through a third-level walkway at Miami International Airport, at the junction of the Dolphin and Flamingo parking garages and the new MIA Mover stop. A software glitch that prevented some travelers from paying their tickets at the airport’s parking garages has reportedly been fixed.
MARSHA HALPER
Miami Herald Staff
A company says it has fixed a software glitch that caused headaches at Miami International Airport’s busy parking garages, with travelers unable to pay at self-service kiosks and attendants letting vehicles exit for free when the payment system malfunctioned.
The problems surfaced in February, prompting a stern letter from the airport to the software provider, which has been paid about $5 million since 2019 to upgrade and operate the payment system and equipment for MIA’s parking garages.
The provider, Designa Access Corp., said the software fix that was needed to permanently solve the temporary glitches went live this week. That should mean no more need for garage attendants to use hand-held payment devices as backups for when the main system went dark.
“Fully fixed today,” Designa CEO Brett Winslow said Wednesday in an email to the Miami Herald. Customers trying to pay at kiosks or at the exit gates “would not see or experience any issues.”
An MIA administrator said in a letter to Designa that the problems started on Feb. 9 when the company’s computer system suffered “a complete failure.”
Winslow said the initial fix took a week, restoring the bulk of the technology needed to keep garage payments running smoothly. The system “was fully brought back online” on Wednesday, he said. Two passengers told the Herald on Thursday they did not have issues paying for their MIA garage stays during recent travels.
A Herald reporter attempting to leave an MIA garage on Feb. 22 was unable to use a credit card at either the pedestrian payment kiosk inside the garage or the one at the exit. An attendant communicating through a speaker asked the reporter to read out the number on the garage ticket to calculate how much was owed.
Two days earlier, an MIA administrator had sent Designa a stern letter about the problems.
“Passengers have experienced substantial inconvenience and disruption of service,” Basil Binns, an MIA administrator, wrote in a Feb. 20 letter. The letter declared the company in default of its contractual obligations with Miami-Dade County and demanded a fix to problems that had forced garages to let an unknown number of travelers exit without paying.
“We have incurred significant and ongoing revenue losses,” wrote Basil, deputy director of the county’s Aviation Department.
In an email exchange with the Herald, Winslow said the recent software upgrades have restored the system into working order. Winslow said Designa shouldn’t be held responsible for lost revenue because MIA is supposed to have workarounds for collecting payment when the equipment is down.
A spokesperson for MIA was not immediately available to answer questions about the status of the payment system at the airport’s parking garages or how much revenue the airport lost because of the issue.