Letter: Airport parking fees remain competitive

Leader coverage of parking lot and rate changes coming next year at Burbank Bob Hope Airport omitted a giant fact: The rates for our largest and lowest cost economy lot, Lot A, remain unchanged at $10 per day. There were also no changes in price for other popular lots, including Short Term, Valet, and Lot E.

Readers like letter-writer Bobby Owsinski concluded rates were going up across the board (“Airport should rethink customer benefits,” Mailbag, Nov. 9). Not so. Every parking customer who shops with price as the most important factor will continue to have a space served by frequent shuttle buses a short ride from the front door in a lot that is well-lit and patrolled, and priced less than nearby private lots and less than comparable lots at LAX.

Parking customers who value convenience over price, and who continue to demonstrate that preference by their patronage, will pay $1 more in Lot C, which will still be competitive with its neighboring private lots.

Reader Owsinski also raises the bigger issue of airline fares and service, arguing flights from Burbank cost more and take longer. People who find they have to leave home or office an hour or two earlier to arrive at LAX, then get in a plane that lines up with a dozen others waiting to take off, find a worthwhile difference at Burbank. The airport cannot tell airlines where to fly, when to fly, or how much to charge. That is between the airlines and their customers. The airport’s main job is to provide a safe, convenient and well maintained facility for its tenants and users. We do all we can to encourage the airlines to respond with service and reasonable fares.

Dan Feger
Oxnard
The writer is executive director of Burbank Bob Hope Airport.