They may currently be languishing at 16th in the Blue Square South (or only five seasons from potentially being promoted to the Premier League if you believe diehard Blues fans) but Bishops Stortford Football Club certainly excel in one of their other activities. In addition to kicking a ball around with the likes of AFC Wimbledon and the evocatively named Team Bath, the club also operates a meet and greet airport parking service for nearvy Stansted Airport.

When you think about it, BSFC getting involved with airport parking is an obvious step. The club has plenty of space at Woodside Park, is generally only busy one day a week and is just a long throw-in away from Stansted. My own experience of using BSFC has been very positive. The staff have been unerringly polite and helpful and the car came back just as I handed it over – in need of a good wash and full of junk. Other people who have used the service seem to have a mixed view – some report dents while other say they couldn’t fault the service.

Meet and greet service have become very popular in recent years – particularly among those who don’t want the hassle of waiting for and taking transfer buses. The market has become very competitive too, to the extent that meet and greet often involves a premium of as little as £20 to £40 on top of a typical parking charge.

The fall in price has come about, in part, because airports seem to be making so much money out of parking. BAA, for example, made £164 million from parking in 2007, more than any of its other retail services, including those glittering airside shops. If you have a spare piece of land doing nothing, the idea of getting your hands on some of that loot is very appealing. You would need planning if you were a farmer wanting to turn a spare field into an airport car park but if you had an existing car park used for some other purpose, changing its use in full or part is less difficult.

Sarah Anglim of Meteor Meet and Greet says: “As a company with over 25 years of experience in meet and greet parking we have seen prices rise and fall several times. Some new providers enter the market with no idea of the support structure required to run a professional meet and greet operation – they think it is easy. Meteor meet and greet parking is backed by the full resources of the Go-Ahead Group and we are continually investing in technology, training and innovation. Business travellers should always check the pedigree of their parking supplier, where their car will be stored, how established is the business so they can be assured of a professional service.”

This concern about cowboy operators is also taxing the British Parknig Association (BPA), the industry’s body. Kelvin Reynolds, BPA’s director of technical services says the organisation is working with BAA at Gatwick on a code of practice for meet and greet services, which should be launched in spring next year.

“We would require them to have liveried vehicles, uniformed staff with IDs, that they don’t use premium rate telephone numbers and that they park the vehicles in a safe environment,” he says. “Companies would need to submit evidence of compliance to us and we would do annual assessments.”

Despite the existence of some cowboys, there are many reputable operators in meet and greet, such as Purple Parking and Meteor Meet and Greet.

Meteor’s Sarah Anglim says the service is booming among business travellers.

“The obvious time saving advantages for meet and greet parking against other forms of airport parking are highly attractive to busy business travellers but we are also seeing interest due to the focus on traveller safety and security. Our service is perfect for lone travellers and as a pre-booked service delivered in a public area we also tick all the boxes for traveller tracking,” she says. “The recent launch of our PDA technology to speed up kerbside drop-off and pick-up combined with online booking makes our service seamless for the traveller.”

As yet, that’s a service that is not being offered at Bishops Stortford FC but with more and more people taking advantage of the hassle-free nature of meet and greet, it may be something they'll look in the coming seasons. It will take their mind off the football after all.