If you’re planning to fly out of St Pete Clearwater (PIE) Airport this holiday season, you might want to catch a ride to the airport or pack your patience. Parking is in short supply and airport officials expect to fill all overflow lots before Christmas.
Despite expanding parking from 1172 to 2171 spaces, PIE in its fifth consecutive year of double digit growth and is expecting a record year of over 2 million passengers by the end of 2017.
That means parking is in high demand.
The airport issued a travel advisory to passengers flying out of PIE from December 18 – 29 because of the parking shortage, strongly encouraging passengers to make arrangements to be dropped off and picked-up at the airport.
The overflow lots at PIE were so jammed Friday that it took some people 30 minutes to find parking then get inside the terminal.
More new parking spaces are planned for 2018, but for now, they’re a hot commodity.
Once the long term and overflow lots are full, there are few other parking options since there are no private parking lots around the airport.
PIE also added in their advisory to passengers to arrive for flights two hours early because of traffic issues from nearby construction projects.
