Major improvements to car parking facilities at the largest airport in the Highlands of Scotland will be introduced next Monday (13 November 2006).

The airport’s first long stay car park with 330 spaces will open offering travellers a reduced parking rate of £4 per day for stays of 72 hours and more. This car park has been created at a cost of £700,000 as part of Highlands and Islands Airports’ capital programme.

Revised tariffs will also be introduced in the airport’s three short stay car parks with 20 minutes free parking being offered for the first time to facilitate drop off and pick up journeys at the airport.

The final change being introduced at Inverness is revised traffic management and enforcement measures across the airport site to reduce congestion at the front of the terminal building, stop speeding and cut out fly parking.

The new measures offer significant improvements to passengers and will contribute to the safety of all people using the airport.

Inverness Airport manager James Walton said: “The introduction of a long stay car park is overdue and since the resolution of the terminal PFI contract earlier this year we have been able to address this by investing in Car Park 4. Parking was formerly controlled by the PFI concession company.

“Car parking charges were last reviewed at Inverness in November 2004. Both the new long stay tariffs and revised short stay tariffs bear favourable comparison to other Scottish airports’ charges while the free 20 minutes parking will benefit people coming to drop off passengers.

“The revised traffic management measures will also ensure the safety of passengers at the terminal entrance and contribute to the overall security of the airport site.

“With 1,000 paid for spaces now available we will be able to meet the demand from passengers as the airport continues to grow while achieving a fair market return from car parking,” said Mr Walton.

Inverness Airport is on target to record its busiest ever year in 2006/07 with approaching 750,000 passengers expected to have used the airport by the end of March 2007. This year has seen the introduction of new routes to destinations including Benbecula, Dublin, Leeds Bradford and Liverpool. A Belfast City route will start in December and a Nottingham East Midlands service will be introduced in February 2007.