Good luck finding a place to park at Sea-Tac

Published 1:30 am Thursday, April 11, 2019

By Debbie Cockrell / The News Tribune

If you are headed to Sea-Tac International Airport, you may discover that it takes longer than usual to find parking.

An advisory on the airport’s website early Thursday said its parking garage was full as multiple school districts are on spring break. It also predicts that today (Thursday) and Friday are set to be the most congested this week for the airport, with as many as 100,000 to 150,000 passengers passing through each day.

In a statement sent to The News Tribune on Thursday afternoon, Sea-Tac’s communications manager Perry Cooper said the garage parking status has gone from “full” to “challenging.”

“We currently have about 600 spots available of our 13,000,” Cooper said via email.

“This is a perfect storm that we see during spring break periods as business travelers are still out and leisure travelers are headed out early for long weekends,” he said.

“This combo crosses together and makes the mid-week, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday very full periods for our parking garage.”

Cooper said the airport expects business travelers “to return home Thursday night and Friday to ease some of the congestion, but still alert travelers that they may have to look longer then they have before to find open spots.”

The airport says its most congested times for travelers and drivers are 4:30 a.m. to 7:30 a.m., 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for both arrivals and departures, and arrivals from 8:30 p.m. until past midnight.

Options include taking Link light rail, a bus, shuttle or rideshare to the airport. If you are taking someone to the airport, your best bet is to drop off passengers on the arrivals level for morning flights. If you’re picking someone up in the evening, meet them on the departures level.