Redmond Airport parking crunch prompts advice

The Redmond Airport is busier than ever, and that prompts a warning. Travelers planning to fly this holiday season need to be prepared for full parking lots and long security lines, otherwise they run the risk of delaying their flight plans.

This month alone, the airport has served nearly 80,000 passengers. Zachary Bass, the airport’s director, said Tuesday they are averaging about 2,500 passengers every day. The problem is, there are only 1,100 parking spots available.

Jack Barron, a traveler from Bend, said he’s had trouble finding parking for months.

“The last several times we’ve been here, we can’t find regular parking and we do have handicap placards,” Barron said. “Nothing’s available.”

Another traveler said she parked across the street from the airport and walked over so she didn’t have to bother struggling with parking.

Airport officials know they are suffering from a bit of growing pains.

“We realize there’s an issue,” Bass said. “We’re growing, and it’s a great thing, but we also realize that we need to grow our infrastructure to keep up with that capacity.”

That said, the airport provides several resources to help travelers make finding parking easier.

On its website, http://flyrdm.com/, you can find real-time parking lot images that update every 30 minutes. There’s also a running crawl at the top of the page that shows exactly how many parking spots are available.

If people are still concerned about not being able to find parking, airport officials recommend making other arrangements, such as booking a ride share service or having someone drop you off.

In just a few months, however, the airport has some big plans in store to help ease their parking problems.

“We’re putting into effect, hopefully by the holidays, a short term overflow lot in case it does get full here,” Bass said. “We’re also looking to expand our parking coming up in the spring and adding almost 50 percent more parking.”

Travelers can also expect to see longer security lines, especially in the morning. That’s because there are 10 scheduled flights between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. Hundreds of people try to rush through just two TSA security lines.

“We’re seeing passengers expect to get here 45 minutes early and make their flight — and they’re not,” Bass said.

Back in March, NewsChannel 21 learned the airport was working towards adding a third security line. Officials had said they likely wouldn’t meet the TSA requirements to add another lane for three to four years.

However, these days, due to record-breaking traveler counts, Bass said Central Oregonians might actually see that third TSA lane in a year or two.

“We are a growing airport,” Bass explained. “We’re still small and friendly, and in most cases fast, but just hold on with us a little bit while we expand our infrastructure to meet our needs.”

Travelers can use the “MyTSA” app, which shows how busy an airport’s TSA lines typically are at any given time.

But to be safe, Bass recommends getting to the airport two hours early or risk missing your flight.

If you’re flying out in the afternoon, he said, 90 minutes ahead of time should be enough time, because flights throughout the rest of the day are more spaced out from each other.