As the summer travel season comes to a close, San Antonio International Airport (SAT) officials are looking ahead not just to holiday travel, but to population growth and travel demand in the years to come.
What they see is a need for more vehicle parking spaces, both sooner and later.
After filling the existing parking garage to capacity all summer long, Director of Airports Jesus Saenz said ongoing efforts to forecast demand for various projects led officials to take a closer look at ground transportation needs.
Airport parking hassles are not unique to SAT, he said. “That happens across every major airport across the country. What is surprising is the rapid growth in population at San Antonio.”
In August, Saenz told City Council during a 2025 budget workshop session that the solution to that problem is switching gears on the planned Ground Transportation Center (GTC).
With annual passenger levels expected to reach 12 million next year, SAT officials are reworking the original plan to build a GTC with 500 spaces and shuttle, taxi and rideshare services as one of many projects in the $2.5 billion Airport Strategic Plan.
The initial construction timeline called for the GTC to open in 2027 before the new terminal opens in 2028. Design for the new terminal will be completed in 2025. That much has not changed.
But instead of a 500-space garage, due to ongoing parking shortages that are expected to worsen, the GTC will become a project separate from the overall terminal development program and result in 2,000 parking spots plus space for commercial vehicle traffic.
The budget dollars set aside for the GTC will come out of the terminal development program budget, he said. As a separate project, however, the cost is expected to increase, coming in at $125 million for the first phase.
“But that is revenue-facing development,” he said. The projected revenue from parking and concessions in 2025 is estimated to reach $165 million. Revenue from the valet service alone in July came to $580,000, Saenz said.
Construction on the GTC is expected to get underway next year. Plans call for the GTC to be built with expansion in mind as demand grows.
Removing the GTC project from the overall terminal project means it could be finished sooner than expected, he said. “We’re trying to expedite it as much as possible,” he said. “We’re going to be able to focus on it a lot more versus on the multitude of other projects that are inside the [terminal development program].”
The GTC also won’t be built in its originally proposed location adjacent to the planned new terminal but closer to the current exiting roadway, “a short walking distance to the new terminal complex,” Saenz said.
In its new suggested location, the GTC will have room to grow in later phases with even more parking. A plan to demolish the distinctive 1960s-era Building 1322 to make way for the GTC and terminal remains in place.
In the meantime, the airport’s new parking management vendor, Metropolis Technologies (which acquired SP+ in May), is planning to debut new services meant to ease the hassles of getting in and out of the airport, Saenz said.
The vendor and its operations at the airport, including running shuttles, directing traffic to open spaces and offering a valet service, has met expectations in its first 90 days, he said. Overall, officials have been pleased with their service.
As for complaints, those have focused mostly on there not being enough parking spaces in general, Saenz said.
As a new operator, the vendor is in a transition phase, evaluating existing policies and making recommendations, said Ryan Rocha, assistant director, chief of operations in the city’s aviation department. “So there are going to be some growing pains,” he said.
One pain point for the shuttle service is picking up and dropping off passengers at a terminal that was built in 1984 and not suited for today’s level of traffic, Rocha said.
Coming soon is a fleet of new 35-seat shuttle buses, branded with the airport’s new look, and a reservation system that lets travelers book a parking space in advance of arriving at the airport.
“As we look at the overall geographical radius [and] the people that use our parking facilities, they’re not just coming from San Antonio, they’re coming from afar, and they want to be able to have some assurances that they have a parking space when they arrive,” he said.
In addition, by this fall, travelers will be offered a baggage checking service when they park. The service allows travelers to skip the ticket counter and go straight to security checkpoints.
Saenz expects the service to cost about $4 per bag.
As the airport grapples with parking, officials there are also focused on other major developments, including building a highly anticipated new $153 million terminal, and celebrating the airport’s first nonstop transatlantic flight.
About 70% of all seats were filled for Condor’s service to and from Frankfurt, which ends its first seasonal offering this Friday.
In addition, local officials are awaiting word from the Federal Aviation Administration on whether San Antonio finally will be awarded a coveted slot at Ronald Reagan Washington International Airport (DCA).
But the parking issues are not distracting him from those efforts, Saenz said.
“All that growth that we’ve experienced in the recent years … requires that we adjust our parking capacity prioritization,” he said. “This is not necessarily a frustration, but it’s an opportunity to develop the SAT parking infrastructure, as we have always planned, but just a lot sooner.”
