What shoulder season? RDM parking lots full
For the first time in 18 months, the 1,100 parking spaces at Redmond Municipal Airport were all full Friday afternoon — much to the surprise of airport officials, who advised travelers to check their website for updates and live webcams as they work to ease the crunch long-term.
As of 4 p.m. Friday, there were no passenger parking spaces available, officials said. They said parking lot attendants were monitoring availability and will update the airport’s website hourly.
To help RDM passengers ‘know before they go’, RDM officials encourage passengers to view airport parking lot cameras at https://www.flyrdm.com/?Airport-Parking-Lot-Cams and/or consider choosing alternative ground transportation options. (http://www.flyrdm.com/?Ground-Transportation)
“Parking availability is expected to fluctuate today and over the weekend in accordance with the airport’s arriving and departing flight schedule,” the announcement said.
Airport Manager Zachary Bass said the full-up condition during what’s normally a slower post-Labor Day “shoulder season” came as a surprise.
“We have only overflowed once in the past two years, and that was spring break” of 2017, Bass said. “We’ve been only running 75 percent full this summer, including the major holidays. Truthfully, it’s caught us off-guard.”
But Bass also said they have been working on long-term solutions to the parking capacity issue.
“We’re looking at an overflow lot and a major expansion this spring,” he said. “We’re looking to push out 300 to 400 spots.”
There is currently some off-street parking available across Airport Way, Bass said, “thought it is a bit of a hike.”
There are actually fewer flights now than during the summer, so the added cars are a bit of a puzzle. “We’re known as ‘friendly, fast and clean,’ so we weren’t expecting it,” Bass said. “We have plans for Christmas and Thanksgiving,” to deal with the added crowds.
The public areas of the terminal at RDM are open 24/7, the airport noted. Arriving and departing passengers are welcome to stay in the public areas of the airport to facilitate their travel needs, regardless of the hour.
Redmond Municipal Airport has 25 daily commercial flights and is currently served by four air carriers; Alaska Air, American Airlines, Delta Airlines, and United/United Express, with daily direct flights to Denver, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Portland, Salt Lake City, San Francisco and Seattle.
