Parking rates at the Atlanta airport went up in May for the first time since 2017.
Some travelers might not like it, but officials at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport say it’s a vital step.
According to airport Assistant General Manager Tyronia Smith, the Consumer Price Index has jumped more than 34% since the last time Hartsfield-Jackson raised its rates.
Here’s what you need to know:
The new rates
- Hourly: $10 (from $3). Daily max: $50 for first day (from $36)
- Daily: $30 (from $19)
- Economy: $20 (from $14)
- ATL West deck: $30 (from $16)
- Domestic park-ride: $15 (from $10)
Hourly saw the biggest increase — and that was on purpose. Hate to break it to you, but ATL has had it pretty good, folks.
Atlanta‘s hourly daily max had been $36. Now it’s $50-$75 in domestic and $70-$100 in international.
Los Angeles, by comparison, is $60-$70. Chicago’s is $79. Denver’s is $168.
The lower cost meant people were leaving their cars in hourly for days, Smith said. As a result, there wasn’t “sufficient parking for those that simply want to run in to meet their friends and family at the airport.”
Overall, Atlanta‘s new rates still remain “at or below” its peer airports, Smith promised, including LAX, Denver, New York-LaGuardia — even though Atlanta‘s lots are comparatively closer to its terminals.
Credit: Steve Schaefer/AJC
Credit: Steve Schaefer/AJC
The why
The rates should address short-term capacity by pushing some people toward MARTA or Uber, airport officials say.
They are also going to help pay for more long-term capacity in the form of the new parking decks rising into the skyline.
The airport makes $500,000-$575,000 daily from parking fees. Officials expect that revenue will jump 25%-30% annually with the new rates.
At a recent City Council budget hearing, airport finance director Bryan Benefiel said the new revenue so far is “really trending as we expected” and hasn’t meaningfully dampened usage.
Hartsfield-Jackson is in the midst of a decade-long parking deck revolution, spending hundreds of millions to replace its 40-year-old domestic parking structures. The construction work and closures are another contributor to tight parking space.
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Phase 1 of the $530 million South deck project is underway. When it opens next summer, it will add about 7,700 more spaces in time for the FIFA World Cup.
It will feature indicator lights above each parking spot to allow people to see an open space without trolling down every aisle to check.
After the 2026 holiday season, the airport will implode and replace the existing South deck, one of the most disruptive construction projects afoot at the airport.
Meanwhile, work on a new North deck is already underway. The airport is also eyeing how to increase parking capacity at the international terminal, Smith said.
But is there a risk the airport is overbuilding parking, as autonomous vehicles continue to spread?
The team is constantly evaluating and modeling its future parking needs to try to avoid over- or underbuilding, Benefiel told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“You just got to constantly pay attention to it. And as each phase of the parking comes into play, you reevaluate.”
Spring break parking nightmare
For travelers like Timothy Hannan, these changes can’t come soon enough.
Spring break in April coincided with the Masters, and many airport lots hit max capacity. Hannan and his husband got caught in the thick of it while on a weekend trip.
They made a prepaid parking reservation at ATL West, only to find the deck full on arrival.
“We scrambled to go to the airport Park and Ride lot, but there were so many people there the shuttles couldn’t keep up,” he wrote in an email.
“After numerous full shuttles coming by with no room, we called an Uber from the lot to the airport in order to not miss our flight.”
The way back wasn’t much better. It took 45 minutes of waiting in a “disorganized line with just one poor worker trying to keep things relatively orderly,” he said.
He hasn’t yet received a requested refund for the reservation — so has instead contested the charge with his credit card company.
Hannan, for one, thinks the airport rates needed to increase.
Atlanta‘s fees had been cheaper than his hometown of Minneapolis, he pointed out. And, he said, “there is more demand than the airport can handle.”
The experience will cause him to change his parking strategy.
“I thought planning ahead and getting a reservation for a peak period would be safe. I’ll likely rideshare more or try reserving at off-site lots,” he said.
The Concourse
This column has been adapted from the May edition of The Concourse, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution‘s LinkedIn newsletter about all things Atlanta airport.
Keep up with the latest insider news about the world’s busiest airport by subscribing on the AJC‘s LinkedIn page, https://www.linkedin.com/company/atlanta-journal-constitution/.
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