Frequent flyers’ parking pique
Frequent flyers who used to spend $350 on an airport car park card may now have to fork out thousands of dollars a year.
The New Plymouth Airport started phasing out the electronic swipe cards in March last year and have said they don’t plan to replace them.
The cards used to cost $350 for the year and allowed travellers to swipe in and out of the car park gates as many times as they needed throughout the year.
However, now the most cost effective option seems to be to park at the airport for $80 a week. This means if a frequent user parked for five weeks of the year, they will already be spending more than they did on their annual car park card.
Airport chief executive Wayne Wootton said in an emailed statement that they are not setting up any payment plans for frequent users.
All users will pay the normal parking fees that can be up to $14 a day until February 11, or $80 a week.
From today the daily parking fee will go up to $16, along with the hourly rate doubling to $2 and the free-parking period dropping from an hour to 20 minutes. These changes are being implemented to help pay for $28.7million upgrade to the New Plymouth Airport’s terminal.
However, it’s not the cost alone that’s annoying frequent travellers, it’s having the convenience of the cards taken away.
Stuff motoring writer Rob Maetzig travels at least once a fortnight, for up to a week at a time, and used a car park card for the past five years.
‘‘It was easily the most cost effective way of using the carpark,’’ Maetzig said.
He discovered the annual cards were being disestablished when he couldn’t get out of the car park one day during the middle of last year.
What annoyed him the most was that he had to get off one of the three planes that land at 8pm and try to pay for his parking at one of the few payment machines.
‘‘It was good because I didn’t have to use those inconvenient machines.’’
"It was good because I didn't have to use those inconvenient machines." Rob Maetzig
Maetzig thought with parking costs rising the airport should look at installing more payment machines and making parking more convenient for travellers.
Symons Group owner Graham Symons discovered his card had been disestablished in a similar way to Maetzig - while he had a line of cars behind him as he tried to exit the car park.
Symons travels two or three times a month and said his card stopped working around mid way through last year. He called the process ‘‘a bit of a shambles’’.
The annual cost of parking is probably around the same for Symons, he said, but he enjoyed the convenience of the card.
‘‘It’s just one of those things, we don’t like change.’’
From next month car park users will be able to pay as they exit with credit cards and paywave, with debit facilities also in the works.