St. Louis, MO, June 12--Butch Mires didn't set out to give Lambert Field the white glove treatment on Wednesday, but that didn't keep him from joining critics who have grumbled about the airport's well-worn and occasionally dirty carpeting, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
"It was not good. It was horrible," said Mires, advertising director for the McCook, NE, Daily Gazette who was en route to Cape Giradeau, MO for a meeting. "It looks dirty, not fresh and clean - like it had not been taken care of. I wasn't impressed at all."
As part of a larger $7.1 million airportwide facelift, Lambert officials said Wednesday that they had begun installing new carpeting in the corridors at a cost of $952,731. American Airlines also is replacing carpets in gate areas under part of the $14.6 million program it announced in September.
Deputy Airport Director Gerard Slay said the airport should wrap up work on its carpeting installation within eight weeks.
The St. Louis Airport Authority, the governing body for Lambert, on Wednesday approved spending nearly $1.2 million on carpet cleaning over three years.
The competitively bid contract went to the incumbent and low bidder, Dupont Commercial Flooring Systems.
While Mires viewed carpet cleaning as a good airport investment, other travelers aren't so sure. Attorney Ross Kodner of Wisconsin, president of Microlaw, said he pays "absolutely zero" attention to the condition of airport carpeting. A frequent flier, he puts a lot more stock in things like signage and convenience.
"It seems like you are in and out of airports so quickly, that you don't really pay attention to those sorts of things," said business traveler Lori Marshall of Des Moines, Iowa. "One million dollars seems like a lot of money" for cleaning the carpets.
