Hertz ad featured on a Ryanair jst Wikimedia / robot
Just like the airlines, Hertz is adjusting capacity in search of greater profitability. And it’s also doing something they’re not doing at the moment: pushing up prices. Base pricing for on-airport rentals will go up by $5 a day or $20 per week; off-airport rates will go up by $3 and $10. The increases apply across all Hertz brands, including Dollar and Thrifty.
On the capacity side, it plans to grow by 1.5-2.5%, significantly less than the expected increase in travelers. Of course, that doesn’t mean that Hertz wants to run out of cars on a busy day…it mainly means that they believe they have too many cars going idle on those days.
BusinessTravelNews has more DETAILS. One interesting one: the recent strength of the U.S. dollar against the Euro and other currencies has cost Hertz a chunk. Results for the first quarter of this year showed that in the U.S. market, Hertz “transaction days” and revenue both declined. Internationally, though, transaction days increased, and revenue would have also…but the gain compared to last year was wiped out by those Euros buying far fewer dollars this year than last.
