LITTLE ROCK — The maximum amount of time on the parking meters at Little Rock National Airport, Adams Field, is 20 minutes - more than enough time to drop off or pick up someone.
If they already are at the terminal curb.
Hundreds of patrons of the state’s largest airport learn the hard way, returning to their vehicles to find a $15 parking ticket added to the four quarters they may have fed the meter.
“The meter is for quick pick up and drop off,” said T.J. Williams, an airport spokesman. “It’s a convenience space. Generally, people arealready at the curb ready to go or already ready to drop off.”
People who go to the airport are getting the message, based on the number of parking tickets Little Rock police officers assigned to the airport write. The number has fallen to a little more than 300 per month on average in the first six months of 2010 compared with the more than 500 per month average officers wrote during the first six months of last year, the police records showed.
The Police Department statistics do not break down where the parking tickets are written. But Sgt. CassandraDavis, a police spokesman, said 90 percent of the tickets officers write at the airport are for parking-meter violations. The airport receives no revenue from ticket fines.
At the same time, it isn’t surprising the airport is collecting more revenue from the 36 metered spaces, which are right outside the terminal but still away from the terminal’s curb, where no one may leave an unattended vehicle. The meter rates were raised June 1, 2009. They went from 25 cents for 15 minutes with the maximum of an hour to 25 cents for five minutes with the maximum of 20 minutes.
In the first six months of this year, the airport collected $104,084.43 from the metered parking spaces. The total amount was 51.4 percent more than the $68,741.46 the airport collected during the same period in 2009, according to airport data.
While the airport collected more, it appears that airport patrons are using the spaces less. The price per space essentially tripled but revenue only doubled.
That is just what airport officials wanted. Before the airport raised the price to park at a meter, it was comparable to paying to park in the nearby short-term lot. Thus, airport patrons were opting to use the meters, creating congestion in front of the terminal. The congestion worried the U.S. Transportation Security Administration, which is responsible for security in the terminal, airport officials said.
The increase in the price to park at the airport, which provides about one third of Little Rock National’s revenue, has helped bolster the airport’s bottom line. In the first six months of the year, net income was $4,088,900, compared with $3,380,455 for the same period in 2009, according to the airport’s latest comparative income statement. It also was $1.6 million above what airport officials had budgeted. Mindful of the sluggish economy, they had anticipated a 5 percent decline in passengers using the airport when, it turns out, total passengers through June rose just less than a half percent to $1,106,116.
Beginning in January, the airport raised the rates it charges for parking by as much as 33 percent to help pay for parking improvements worth more than $1 million. The rate increases came six months after Little Rock National made adjustments to its parking rates that were projected to raise an extra $250,000 a year.
The new rates are expected to increase the airport’s income by nearly $725,000 annually.
The most visible product of the higher rates - installation of a system allowing people to pay for parking before they leave the terminal or to pay automatically at the tolling booths by credit card - has yet to become operational. Those improvements cost nearly $500,000.
It is unknown when the “pay on foot” portion of the improvements will launch, Williams said. “Testing and branding have to be completed first.”
Bob East, the chairman of the Little Rock Municipal Airport Commission, which approved the rate increases, said he hasn’t heard any complaints about the meters.
“The complaints we got several years ago was you can’t park in front of the terminal,” he said. “Now we can.”
The meters were installed in 2006, five years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, ending the practice of allowing people to leave unattended vehicles at the curb outside the terminal. At the time, airport officials said the parking for unattended vehicles can be allowed only when the national threat level is yellow or below. If the security threat level is elevated toorange or above, the parking area in front of the terminal would have to be shut down, they said.
Even then, airport officials urged anyone who believed they needed more time to use other parking areas.
It would be foolhardy for anyone to count on parking at a metered space and having enough time to enter the terminal, greet a passenger, collect their baggage and return to their vehicle, all within 20 minutes, East said.
“You never know about picking up somebody,” he said. “What if the plane is late?
The metered parking spaces are “short-term shortterm,” he said.
Other airports in the region generally give patrons a grace period in short-term parking.
At Northwest Arkansas Regional at Highfill, “all parking is free for the first [30] minutes in the short-term lot,” according to the airport’s website. “This free service is offered to allow for ‘quick trips’ into and out of the terminal at no cost for the visitor or greeter ... The free parking does away with the need for anyone to leave their vehicle unattended at the curb.”
The first 30 minutes also is free in the short-term parking lot at Memphis International Airport, at Springfield-Branson National Airport in Springfield, Mo., and at Tulsa International Airport. Dallas/ Fort Worth International Airport provides no free parking,according to its website.
Some, but not all, airports that are close to Little Rock National in passenger boardings also offer free parking for the first 30 minutes. Little Rock National ranks No. 83 in passenger boardings, according to federal government statistics.
The airports ranked just below Little Rock National all offer the first 30 minutes of parking free. Those airports are the Albany International Airport in Albany, N.Y.; the Greater Rochester International Airport in Rochester, N.Y.; Kona International Airport in Hawaii; Antonio B. Won Pat International Airport in Guam; and the Lihue Airport in Hawaii.
Of the five airports ranked just above Little Rock National, only Charleston International Airport in Charleston, S.C., offers the first 30 minutes of parking free. Syracuse Hancock International Airport in Syracuse, N.Y., charges $1.50 for up to one hour; Piedmont Triad International Airport in Greensboro, S.C. charges 25 cents for 15 minutes in parking meters for up to two hours.; Long Island MacArthur Airport in Islip, N.Y., charges $3 for up to one hour; and Colorado Springs Airport in Colorado Springs charges $1 for 30 minutes in its short-term lot.
“Quite frankly, each airport in each city has to do what’s in its best interest,” said Ron Mathieu, the executive director at Little Rock National.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 07/26/2010