RDU Exhausted Parking Capacity During Holidays

RDU Airport, NC – Despite the addition of more than 4,500 new parking spaces between the year-end holidays of 1999 and 2000, the Raleigh-Durham Airport Authority has released parking inventory figures that show RDU's parking capacity was virtually exhausted from December 23-27.

"Our peak inventory of vehicles parked during the 1999 holidays was about 15,800 vehicles," said Airport Director John Brantley. "On Christmas Day 2000 we had nearly 20,000 vehicles parked at RDU. We have marked spaces for a little more than 17,000 cars, so our staff had to get really creative and park customers everywhere we could manufacture a space on the airport."

RDU's parking improvement plans are continuing at a rapid pace. The airport opened a $40 million, 2,700-space deck last year along with nearly 2,000 new spaces in Park and Ride Lot 3.

Construction bids on the next parking deck will be received next week. That structure will contain 6,150 spaces. Although part of its capacity may be available for the year-end holidays in 2002, the deck will take more than three years to complete.

It's the three-year period between now and when the next deck is completed that has airport officials worried.

"Although we've spent millions on additional parking facilities and will aggressively continue those improvements, it's likely we'll again have to begin asking passengers to consider alternative means of accessing RDU during peak travel periods," Brantley said. "Our next big test for parking capacity will come early this spring when all the colleges and universities get out for spring break."

RDU's has been one of the fastest growing airports in the nation during the last two years. Passenger traffic grew at nearly 18 percent in 2000 over 1999's record 24 percent growth.

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