Holiday discount for airport parking

Paul Clinton

AIRPORT DISTRICT -- Air travelers can park in style and save a few

bucks at Burbank Airport during the Thanksgiving Day weekend.

For the five-day holiday beginning today, the airport is knocking six

dollars off the cost of valet parking. Instead of the usual $18-per-day

rate, valet users will only be asked to plunk down $12.

With holiday traffic through the airport at a high point for the year,

airport officials announced the reduction to ease the congestion from the

airport’s other lots, spokesman Victor Gill said.

Since valet users tend to be mainly business travelers who don’t fly

during the holidays, airport parking lots are overwhelmed. By shifting

some of the long-term parkers from the enclosed structure to the valet

lot, the airport will free up spaces for those who just want to zip in to

pick up a relative.

The long-term users “clog our inventory of parking spaces for meeters

and greeters,” Gill said. “We felt that we wanted there to be some more

(spaces) for the meeters and greeters to park near the terminal.”

The incentive to use valet is also economic.

To park for a full day in the airport’s enclosed structure would cost

$24, Gill said. Several lots near the airport offer lower long-term

parking rates.

Thanksgiving is the airport’s heaviest weekend of the year. While the

airport averages 14,000 passengers on nonholiday days, more than 16,000

will use the facility for each of the five days beginning today, Gill

said. The 15% increase brings the capacity of airplanes during the

weekend to nearly 90%, Gill said.