Travelers Face Parking Problems At Tulsa International Airport

People heading out for Spring Break have been running into some trouble when it comes to finding parking at Tulsa International Airport.

The airport said travel is up this year as many people are making their first trips since the pandemic.

Sam Hill has traveled through Tulsa for decades for work, and decided to skip the drive this week since it's Spring Break.

"Well I have a routine where I always park on the top level, then go down the escalator and go in and get on my flight and that happens about two or three times a week," said Hill. "I wasn't able to do it this week because there's no parking."

The airport said more people are traveling than in recent years, with the pandemic over and more flights being added.

"There's definitely some pent up demand throughout the pandemic for people wanting to get out and travel, and we're seeing that as well, but again, with our flights being up 25 percent year over year for Spring Break but also six percent over pre-pandemic levels," said Andrew Pierini, the Chief Commercial Officer at the Tulsa International Airport.

Because of the lack of open spots, people have also been turning to places like Fine Airport Parking.

Fine said they had to open extra spots because they knew the demand was going to be high.

"We actually had some issues, technical issues, with our south lot, but we just opened that back up, because we knew Spring Break was going to be busy," said Lindsey Watros, a Shift Supervisor at Fine Airport Parking. "We got that opened up, we're getting our economy lot ready for everybody, to open."

Hill said even though the parking spots filled up quickly this week, he isn’t worried about the airport having enough spots in the future.

"Currently, it's crowded, because of Spring Break, but normally, you can park and be inside, go through security in 15 minutes, any other time besides now," said Hill.

The airport said especially during busy times like this week, people need to leave even earlier for their flight so there's time to get there, find parking, and get through security.