Photo above – Brandy Starr Ware, Airport Terminal Coordinator – Bunny & Dino’s rescuer and tour guide, holding the four K-9 Plushies.
The Daytona Beach International Airport in Florida, known affectionately as DAB has a vibrant “Customer Experience” culture practiced by airport employees, tenants, businesses, and TSA. One recent heartwarming story of the excellent DAB customer experience and VIP treatment centered around two lost Stuffies, Bunny and Dino.
Two young girls traveling with their parents back home to New York accidentally left their fluffy friends at the gate. The girls’ mother emailed the airport and the Terminal Coordinator; Brandy Starr Ware, went immediately to Gate 5 and rescued the wayward stuffies. Instead of being taken directly to the lost and found bin, Bunny and Dino received the full DAB VIP treatment.
Mady Dudley, Public Relations Director, for Aqua Marketing and Communications, shared, “From baggage claim to the jet bridge, the stuffed animals got a grand tour of the terminal, complete with a behind-the-scenes photo shoot. After their airport adventure, they were lovingly packed up and returned to their owners thanks to DAB’s Mailback Program, which ensures that lost items (especially those with sentimental value) make it home safely.” The adventure of Bunny and Dino touring the airport and making it back to the little girls was posted to social media and received over 28,000 views and 329 likes.
In describing the Mailback Program, DAB Director of Marketing and Customer Experience, Joanne Magley noted that the program has been active at DAB for 20 plus years and is a part of the great customer experience that is endorsed by airport leadership, including Karen Feaster, Airport Director. For items that are lost and found, the airport works to ascertain who the owner is and will pack the item(s) and mail them back to the owner. Large items like a laptop to small items such as keys and cellphones, are carefully packaged and sent courtesy of the airport.
TSA, whose director describes the agents as the “friendliest” also participates in this when a prohibited item is found at the check point, the passenger is given the opportunity to address an envelope and mail the item, like a pocketknife back to themselves.
(On a personal note, travelling recently through my small home airport, I discovered I had forgotten that my pocketknife of sentimental value, given to me by my church was still in my pocket. My only options were to leave it with TSA as trash or call my wife and hope she could get back and retrieve it before boarding started. Although the wait was a bit nerve wracking, it all worked out… but something like DAB’s Mailback Program would have been very welcome, really nice and would certainly have added to my customer experience.)
Providing a great customer experience is a significant part of DAB’s culture and is supported not only by the airport leadership and staff, but also by the airlines, rental car agencies, concessions, TSA, tenants and others. Not long ago a passenger apparently left his cell phone in an Uber car and couldn’t travel without it. His first touch point with the airport was the outside security person who got right to work trying to find a solution. The DAB team got involved and working together got the passenger rerouted on a later flight and got his cellphone returned to him.
DAB, according to Magley, “is a great place to work.” The airport does special things for their passengers like providing flowers on Mother’s Day and cookies on Father’s Day. In coordination with the Volusia County Library, the airport has a free library in the terminal where passengers can download eBooks or take books provided there. Additionally, the airport has a team of motivated volunteer Airport Ambassadors that occupy an information booth and a podium near the checkpoint. Not only do these ambassadors provide information, they assist with special events like new flight celebrations, handing out the flowers and cookies, but to many passengers, they ARE the face of the airport and as such exemplify the airport’s culture of providing a great customer experience.
Additionally, DAB has four Sheriff deputies with bomb detection K-9s who roam the terminal. Plushies (see photo at top) have been made in the likeness of each of the four dogs. These plushies have the DAB logo, Sheriff Department badge and another Sheriff badge as well as the dog’s name on them. The deputies hand these plushies out periodically to children as a way of bridging the gap between law enforcement and the passengers. This program has been very well received and is another part of the great passenger experience culture at DAB.
The Daytona Beach International Airport was awarded the Commercial Service Airport of the Year Award for Florida in 2021 and 2024. They also received the FAA Southern Region Airport of the Year Award for 2023.
