Wichita moves to limit free VIP parking at Eisenhower airport

The number of VIP parking passes issued for Wichita Eisenhower National Airport is expected to drop to fewer than 27 this week, down from 113 last year.

The Wichita City Council is scheduled to vote Tuesday on City Council Policy 35, new rules designating that only city officials and employees will get free parking passes for the airport, and even then only when they’re on public business.

The changes are expected to pass easily. In January, the council set new guidelines.

The new pass policy “will be reflective of what you approved previously,” Layton told the City Council at an agenda review meeting Friday.

In October, The Wichita Eagle and Kansas.com reported that 113 individuals had been issued free airport parking.

They included the seven members of the City Council, 30 current and former members of city staff, 13 members of the Airport Advisory Board, seven U.S. Congress members and staffers, five current and former Sedgwick County commissioners, four county department heads; the president of Wichita State University and the superintendent of the Wichita school district.

Also included were about 20 private-sector businesspeople, including Chamber of Commerce and Wichita Economic Development Corp. staff members and current and retired aircraft company executives.

The VIP passes were for free parking in public lots, separate from the passes issued to day-to-day airport workers for parking in the employee lot and secured-area ramps.

Under the proposed rule, the City Council members, who also serve as the Airport Authority board, would be the only ones to get individual parking passes.

And those would only be for traveling on the city’s behalf or when they’re at the airport for official business. They would have to pay for parking when they fly for vacation.

An undetermined number of passes, fewer than 20, will be issued to the city manager’s office to be checked out by city employees when they travel on business.

All of the cards will be electronic ones that can track when someone uses them. In the past, the airport VIP pass was a simple plastic card that the user would show the attendant at the exit, so no use records were kept.

The new policy represents a compromise between Airport Director Victor White, who wanted to cut back on free-parking passes with the completion of a new terminal and parking garage at the airport, and City Manager Robert Layton, who wanted to eliminate them.

When the free VIP parking started at the airport is a mystery. White said he inherited the list when he was hired 10 years ago and his two immediate predecessors told him they did, too.

This story was originally published March 13, 2016 at 1:23 PM with the headline "Wichita moves to limit free VIP parking at Eisenhower airport."