Here come the sky lots

By Cindy Landrum  

JUNE 30, 2011 11:44 a.m. (0)

Greenville-International Airport officials said landing Southwest Airlines would bring passengers who had been traveling to Atlanta and Charlotte because of cheaper airfares back to the Upstate.

Numbers show they were right.

GSP saw an increase in passenger traffic for the third consecutive month.

The extra traffic has caused a long-term parking squeeze, causing airport officials to open “sky lot” parking on the roofs of GSP’s two parking garages starting Friday.

“Our long-term parking lot was filling up on Wednesday or Thursday and staying full over the weekend,” said GSP spokeswoman Rosylin Weston. “It’s not that you can’t find a space, it’s that you had to go to the shorter term lots.”

The two sky lots will add 600 long-term parking spaces. They will cost $6 per day. That’s $2 more than the airport’s 1,197-car long-term lot, but cheaper than the $8 daily rate or the garage’s $12 per day. Parking in the short-term lot costs $14 a day.

The airport has plans to expand its long-term parking lot, but Weston said that would take a year.

The sky lots are not a temporary fix, she said. They will remain after the long-term lot expansion.

“This was our most immediate response,” she said. “We hope that customers will be pleased with the option.”

In May, nearly 163,000 passengers flew into and out of GSP, a 48 percent increase compared with May 2010 and the second best May in airport history.

The airport has seen a steady rise in passenger traffic since Southwest’s entry into the market in March. GSP had 140,000 passengers in March and more than 155,000 passengers in April.

Airport officials credit the increase to lower fares and more destinations along with the start of summer. Almost every airline operating out of GSP saw a significant increase, officials said.

One airline, Vision, will be discontinuing service at GSP after July 17.

The airline has been in the market since March and offered six flights per week to Destin and Fort Walton Beach. Airline officials said response was lower than expected. Vision is also discontinuing service in Columbia.