ORLANDO, Florida. – Having trouble finding parking at Orlando International Airport? You’re not alone.

Due to the crisis, the airport has initiated new measures to free up thousands of parking spaces in the coming years.

Last week, the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority (GOAA) approved an increase in the customer fee paid by rental car customers to $9 per day – previously the rate was $6.

The additional funds from this price increase will be used to create a consolidated car rental operation (called “ConRAC”), the aim of which is to consolidate the car rental operations of all MCO terminals in one location.

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“This consolidation would free up a lot of space for passengers in the parking garages currently occupied by car rental companies,” says a GOAA press release. “The ConRAC will be financed mainly through (customer fees).”

After the opening, the ConRAC will immediately release around 5,000 parking spaces in the airport’s parking garages A, B and C, GOAA representatives told News 6.

Even better, GOAA stated that the changes could help reduce traffic congestion around the airport, ultimately leading to greater road safety.

While the project completion date is dependent on funding, ConRAC is currently expected to be completed in 2032.

In the meantime, however, the airport is working on implementing plans to provide short-term parking solutions.

This includes:

• More than 2,000 additional parking spaces have already been created in the MCO complex, including the three parking spaces near the train station that opened last year.
• A parking reservation system was added to Level 4 of Garage C in January, but there is potential to extend this system to the rest of the airport’s parking system.

• The airport plans to install a new state-of-the-art parking space identification system that will help identify exactly where available parking spaces are located in the parking garages. The system will also continuously count the total number of available parking spaces to prevent motorists from driving through or obstructing traffic.

ConRAC was part of an improvement program that was approved in June. Overall, the preliminary program budget for the rental car expansion program is around $2.2 billion.

The increase in customer setup fees is scheduled to take effect on November 1.

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