Widget takes the guessing out of Sacramento airport parking

It has just gotten a little less stressful to find a parking spot at Sacramento International Airport.

The airport has introduced an information page on its website that shows exactly how many parking spots are available at any particular moment in each of its four main lots.

The real-time parking widget is viewable on smartphones so that fliers can see what’s available as they enter airport grounds, airport marketing manager Mark Haneke said.

By clicking on a map of each lot, users can also compare prices. The new service comes during what is expected to be the busiest summer at the Sacramento airport in a decade.

As of Monday morning, the device showed that the airport’s largest and least expensive lot, the economy lot, had only 617 out of 5,566 spots available, but the more expensive main garage had more than half of its 5,166 spots available.

The airport has been seeing a growing number of flights and passengers for the past several years, and is headed toward setting all-time passenger records next year after deep drop-offs during the height of the recession.

“As we get deeper into the summer we will see more (parking) bottlenecks,” Haneke said. The parking garage is most likely to fill on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays this summer, due to higher levels of vacation and business travel.

The parking widget is at http://sacramento.aero/smf/to_and_from/parking.

This story was originally published July 3, 2017 at 10:15 AM with the headline "Widget takes the guessing out of Sacramento airport parking."