Redmond Airport to add new fee on rental cars

Starting Oct. 1, it will cost some Central Oregon visitors a few more bucks to cruise around. The Redmond Airport proposed a customer facility charge for rental cars, and city councilors approved the move Tuesday night.

Redmond Airport Director Zachary Bass said while it will cost a little more ($3 a day, for up to seven days) to rent a car, the money will go toward supporting and enhancing Roberts Field, and also will help with the facility deal with increasing traffic to the area.

“It’s really a byproduct of the growth that we’re seeing here at the airport,” Bass said. “Just last month was the busiest month we’ve ever had, in any month, and what the CFC (customer facility charge) does is allows us to expand our infrastructure.”

Projections provided to the city council show the new fee is expected to bring in nearly $500,000 in each of the next five years.

Bass also said this isn’t a new concept.

“There are over 130 airports in the country that do this. It is an industry standard,” Bass said. “And actually we’re the only commercial airport in the state of Oregon, or Washington for that fact, that doesn’t have this.”

City Manager Keith Witcosky said the council vote on the new fee was unanimous. He said one of the plans in the works is a large, consolidated facility away from the terminal for rental car companies to gas up and wash all those cars.