Parking your car to see someone off or greeting those who are landing is going to cost you more at Victoria International Airport.
The short-term parking rate at YYJ is set to double to $4 for two hours starting March 1.
The rates for long-term parking are remaining the same.
Elizabeth Brown, chief executive of the Victoria Airport Authority, said the decision to raise rates for the 166 short-term stalls immediately next to the terminal was to deter growing numbers who tend to park there longer, and to raise additional revenue for airport operations.
“We are finding that there are some people who try to stay in there longer than intended to be and they should be in our long-term parking lot. We really want to keep that close parking area for those who are short-term,” said Brown.
Daily long-term parking in an adjoining lot a few steps further from the terminal starts at $1 per half hour and has a per day maximum of $18.
For those who don’t need to go into the terminal for pickups, YYJ has a cellphone parking area on a gravel turnout along Willingdon Road leading into YYJ where people can pull over and call someone who is ready to be picked up in front of the terminal.
Brown said the $4 short-term rate is comparable with other airports in the country.
“As an airport authority, while we’re a not-for profit, we still need to make enough revenue to pay for our operations, so parking is an area we rely on,” said Brown.
“I’ve been working in airports for over 30 years and I’ve never seen a parking lot so close to a terminal that is that inexpensive. Usually, the close-to terminal is your highest-priced parking.”
Brown said YYJ’s Airport Improvement Fee, a $25 charge for every departing passenger, will not increase this year. The airport authority bumped the fee up from $15 last spring.
The fee is used to finance significant infrastructure projects, the most recent being a $2-million fire truck which arrived on Dec. 23 and is being readied for use in a few weeks.
Victoria airport saw nearly 1.5 million passengers through the terminal by the end of November, a 1.4% increase from the first 11 months of 2023, but still shy of pre-COVID levels of more than two million passengers in 2018.
Brown expects the airport to be back over the two-million mark by the end of 2025.
“We’ve seen modest growth this past year, and for the first time we exceeded pre-pandemic passengers levels for the months of July, August and September, which was significant,” said Brown.
“We’re looking to achieve growth from Alaska Airlines, increasing services four times a day to Seattle, which is a very significant connection for us to the United States. We’ve seen some growth and returns in sunspot charters to Mexico as well.”
Brown said airlines across the country struggled over the past year, pointing to WestJet which had to ground several aircraft after a hail storm in Calgary last fall. She said there have also been challenges with aircraft delivery delays.
Still, YYJ is preparing for growth. It’s master plan to 2042 is forecasting an estimated 3.1 million passengers a year and there are plans for significant investments to the runways and the terminal building.
“We’ve got some big decisions to make here in the next year or so,” said Brown.
“We’ve got some pinch points in our facility, particularly in our baggage-handling system, in our security screening and our hold room space where the jet bridges are, so we are actively looking at our master plan and the most important investments that we need to contemplate over the next few years in order to meet what we believe will be continued growth.”
The first hotel on airport lands, the 129-room Town Place Suites by Marriott, is under construction and could be ready for the end of this year. The foundations and elevator cores are underway on 3.5 acres on the northeast side of the airport lands.
A new 28-metre-tall air traffic control tower being built by Nav Canada is expected to be complete by 2027. It will replace the existing, smaller tower built in 1958.
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