Burbank Airport Parking Lots Feeling ‘Holiday-Type’ Squeeze

Fare wars among airlines have combined with construction work at Burbank Airport to create a “holiday-type” parking shortage that may last for months, the airport manager said Friday.

Tom Greer told a news conference that passengers should be aware that it will take them much longer than they might expect to find a parking place.

The problem began with an order by the Federal Aviation Administration to change the layout of the airport, built more than 50 years ago, because the terminal building is too close to the runways to meet current safety standards. The FAA ordered the airport to convert a 650-car parking lot just east of the terminal to an aircraft apron in order to park jetliners farther from the runways.

Construction began last month, Greer said, because, “under normal conditions, this being a slow time, we thought we could weather the loss of these spaces. On the other hand, because the airlines have just begun a fare war, we have a lot more travelers than we anticipated and we’re getting a holiday-type crunch every day.”

“We’re in more of a bind than we anticipated,” he said, suggesting that passengers consider using an alternative to parking their cars--such as getting someone to drop them off or using public transportation.

About 150 parking spaces have been added in remote lots, he said, and officials hope to have 300 more spaces built by mid-March.