LOTS TO GAIN: PARKING PLAYS A PIVOTAL ROLE IN MAKING THE STATE'S TWO MAJOR AIRPORTS FLY.

AuthorWashburn, Mark
PositionOPINION

You call it a movie theater, but you're wrong. It's a popcorn stand attached to an auditorium, selling you 37 cents of ingredients for $8 a bag. Likewise, you call it an airport, but you're wrong. It's a parking lot with runways.

For North Carolina's biggest airports, no operating revenue stream surges stronger than parking--bigger than rent from the airlines, bigger than concessions, bigger than landing fees. If you're in the airport business, parking is where it's at.

At Raleigh-Durham International Airport, parking is a $56 million business, providing 42% of the airport's revenue. At Charlotte Douglas International Airport, parking brings in $59 million, or 27% of revenue, and it's growing rapidly.

Yes, that's a lot. If the airports' parking enterprise was one privately run business, it would show up on Grant Thornton's North Carolina 100 ranking of the state's largest companies (Page 60).

You might think that the airports would be happy with the parking windfall. And you'd be wrong again.

Both RDU and CLT are watching their parking money surge because they've increased rates. Year-over-year, RDU grew its parking business 19% and CLT, 16%.

Who pays? You do, of course. Airport authorities love to crow about the benefits they bring to their regions, and they are powerful economic engines on many levels. But they don't talk about how much of that is extracted from their homegrown patrons.

When CLT raised long-term rates 40% two years ago, it did so with a haughty scowl. There hadn't been a major parking-rate increase in about a decade, the airport told its users, and still CLT was a cheaper place to leave your car than some other airports.

At the same time, it was telling bond-rating...

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