Airport seeks to increase tax on off-site airport parking

By Kelly Yamanouchi

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport wants to increase the fees it charges to off-site airport parking operators, saying it has not been able to cover its ground transportation costs with the current fees.

The airport wants to put an 8 percent tax on the off-site airport parking operators' gross revenues. It plans to seek city council approval for the move in the next several weeks.

Hartsfield-Jackson has also been interested in increasing its fees charged to other ground transportation businesses, including shuttles. Hotels have resisted the attempts to increase hotel shuttle fees.

The airport has long charged off-site parking operators a fixed fee per space, but the switch to a tax on gross revenues will increase the amount the parking operators pay to the airport.

Hartsfield-Jackson competes with off-site airport parking through its own city-owned parking lots, and this month the airport increased its own airport parking rates charged to customers.

Diane Dalton, general manager for Park'n Ticket, said the new tax would likely lead to an increase in the daily rates charged to customers -- currently $11 for uncovered parking and $15 for covered parking.

The new tax will be similar to how the airport collects revenues from concessions and rental car companies, and similar to other airports' fees charged to off-site parking operators, said Hartsfield-Jackson spokesman John Kennedy.

Meanwhile, the airport has been seeking bond financing for more than a year and a half as it works to complete a new international terminal by 2012.

"This is a revenue stream, like others, that would go into the financial documents for us to obtain bonds," Kennedy said.