Philly Airport Parking Lots Are Full, Commuters Urged To Get Ride

PHILADELPHIA, PA — It may be spring, but the on-site parking lots at Philadelphia International Airport look a bit like how mall parking lots sometimes do around the winter holidays.

That’s because all 12,000 available spots are occupied, an airport executive told Patch.

Put another way, there are enough vehicles parked at the airport right now to give a vehicle to practically everyone — man, woman or child — who lives in Haddonfield. Or, slightly more people live in Collingswood than there are vehicles parked at the airport right now.

The at-capacity situation occurred Wednesday even before the holiday weekend officially started and occurred after a “trifecta” of events, Jim Tyrell, the airport’s chief revenue officer, told Patch.

“It’s the long Easter holiday in combination with Spring Break and some of our other foreign carriers resumed transatlantic European service last week,” he explained. "So you have all three of those things happening within a week of each other, which spiked travel demand and travel capacity.”

And if you’re wondering about those long-term, off-site lots, the airport shut them down when COVID-19 caused a drop-off in travel, Tyrell said.

“As you might imagine, it is slightly easier to shut down a parking operation than it is to start one up,” he said in the interview. “We tried [unsuccessfully] to get it in place for the start of the spring travel season.”

Now, the airport is hoping to have the long-term lots back open by next Thursday.

Until then, Tyrell encourages people planning to use the airport to make a reservation at one of the off-site parking lots or to get a ride to the facility.