Airport Parking News

www.Parctel.com: SIX YEARS after Republicans took control of the Philadelphia Parking Authority in a political coup d'etat, the number of people on its payroll has doubled and top salaries have soared, making the patronage haven one of the best-paid addresses in municipal government.

In 2001, when House Republican leader John Perzel engineered the takeover, the Parking Authority had 512 full-time employees. Only two of them were making six-figure salaries.

Six years later, the full-time payroll has grown to 1,051 people, including 20 who are making more than $100,000 a year.

The authority's top job now belongs to Vincent J. Fenerty Jr., a longtime Republican ward leader who joined the authority as a booting supervisor in 1983, initially earning less than $28,000 a year.

Fenerty now makes $194,830 annually as the authority's executive director - more than any of the doctors, lawyers and other professionals on the city payroll, and $50,000 more than Mayor Street.

Meanwhile, the agency has delivered just a sliver of the money that Republican leaders promised to the Philadelphia School District when the GOP takeover sailed through the Legislature - just $4 million in six years.

The authority's growth is fueled in part by new and expanded duties.

On top of its old functions - writing parking tickets, collecting coins from parking meters, booting and towing scofflaws - the authority now runs the mammoth lots at Philadelphia International Airport, tows the cars of drivers who are caught without valid licenses or insurance, administers a new traffic-light camera program that catches drivers running red lights, and regulates the city's taxicabs.

Read the Full story on Philly.com

One of the great frustrations of many travelers flying from Philadelphia International Airport is finding a place to park a car. Especially at school-vacation time, both the economy lot and daily-fee garages can be full, forcing the panicked driver to roam the roads around the airport looking for a private lot. Leaving the car at home and using public transportation is an option, but isn't practical for most people.

The best way we've found to deal with the problem is to use one of more than a dozen off-airport lots that surround PHL, on Route 291 (Industrial Highway) and on Bartram, Essington, Island and Passyunk avenues. These privately operated lots always seem to have space available, and they have the great advantage of taking advance reservations. Unlike PHL's on-airport lots and garages, the off-sites can be booked and the fees paid in advance on the Web using a credit card.

Rates for off-airport lots are competitive with the $9 a day in PHL's economy lot. The daily fee can range from about $6.50 to $15 a day, but if you make a reservation online, there's usually a one-time service fee of $5.

The most comprehensive airport parking Web site we've found is - what else - www.airportparkingreservations.com. Another one is www.parkrideflyusa.com. They have long lists of U.S. and Canadian airports that are part of their networks. When you do a Google search for "airport parking reservations," you will find those two, and other sites with different addresses that link to the first.

You can also find Web sites for individual parking-lot operators at PHL and elsewhere - if you know their names. We have been unsuccessful in navigating to airport-parking sites from the larger online travel sites, including Expedia and Orbitz. But that may just be our lack of time and patience to keep drilling until we find them.

Tom Lombardi, the Suffield, Conn., entrepreneur who runs airportparkingreservations.com, says his site has 200 parking lots at 65 airports in its database, including eight near PHL. Business has boomed at PHL since Southwest started three years ago and parking became tighter. Travelers tend to use off-airport lots regularly after one experience of "going to the economy lot, and it's full, and the sweat starts," Lombardi says.

The off-airport lots may be a little farther from the PHL terminals than the airport economy lot, including some that are a mile or two away. But they have another advantage: service.

Some parking operators have valet service, driving you back and forth in your own car. Most have shuttle buses that, in our experience, pull up behind your car, and not to a bus stop a hundred yards away, within a few minutes of your arrival.

Every time we've used one of the lots and have had more than one bag, the shuttle-bus driver has hopped off and helped us. We always carry $1 bills for tips to encourage the practice.

Source: Tom Belden, Inquirer Staff Writer

The following extract is from a blog by Steve Wernick:

When I travel, I usually fly out of the Philadelphia airport. I usually use the Aampco off-airport parking lot, and they’ve recently been bought out by PreFlight Parking. Recently, I had a problem with their service and I wrote out a detailed complaint to their General Manager. He responded with an apology, an offer of a complimentary service, and an invitation to try them again. They were, after all, in the midst of a change-over.

About two weeks ago, I tried the service again. For the longest time, as a frequent parker, I had the charges go directly to a credit card. Earlier this year, I followed their instructions and changed credit cards. That change didn’t make it into their system, leading to another problem as I was leaving their lot – at about 1am. I’d stayed six or seven days, and the charge was under $85.00.

I wrote an email to the GM, telling him about my experience, how I’d gone back to them without asking for any special consideration, and how it didn’t work out. He apologized again, asked me to try their service, and offered a refund of the last charge.