We the undersigned, believe that the Burlington International Airport Administration is taking advantage of local airline employees who use BTV to commute to their domiciles – the same airline employees who work for the very airlines that make BTV a viable airline destination.

We believe that the administration is price gouging, and arbitrarily raising parking lot fees on a yearly basis without justification, and without improvements commensurate with the increased cost.

It is patently unfair to charge full time airport employees less for parking than commuting airline crews who call Vermont home. BTV terminal employees enjoy paid parking, or parking reimbursement by their employers. This is NOT the case for most airline crews. Further, commuting airline crews occupy parking spots in the employee lot for a fraction of the time used by their local counterparts.

The recent response from your office has stated that the rates are "far under industry standard" but as most of us know, Vermont - and Burlington specifically, are anything but standard. In fact, many large metropolitan airports either charge less for employee parking, or afford space to the airlines who then GIVE their employees parking passes in the employee lots.

Airport management would not have heard a single word of complaint from airline crews about increases that were in line with cost of living, inflation, or some other sensible index. However, as recently as 2008, crew parking cost $100 annually. In 5 years’ time, that fee has exploded by 300%. These exorbitant and unjustified increases need to stop.

In case airport management is under the impression that our employers reimburse crews for parking at their home airport, and that increases of this magnitude in cost don’t affect us directly, this is not true. Most crews are paying this fee out of our own pockets, and out of our own family budgets. Like most Americans, our budgets cannot sustain 300% increases in ANY individual cost item in a 5 year period.

Please stop biting the hand that feeds. Should you need to raise revenue now or in the future, please look to passing these fees on to the consumer (either operators or users) rather than from the wallets of the individuals who work for the companies that bring revenue to our airport.