Chicago MDW or ORD parking
 

I am about to start commuting from Chciago to FLL and I am really struggling to find a resonably priced parking sollution. Anyone with experience commuting from Chicago have any ideas? I found a Park and Fly willing to go as low as $8.00 a day based on availibilty. Econ lot cost $12.00 a day with no discounts availible. Anyone know of Hotels in the area etc?

Can you buy a yearly pass to the employee lots?

Well I know that Midway costs 20.00 a month for employees. Are you commuting offline? If not your employer should be able to come up with the paperwork to get you an employee pass.

unfortunatly the company Spirit will not pay for offline parking, and they are no longer offering offline pilots parking passes at Midway as of 3 years ago so I was told. Yearly passes are not offered either except for a park and fly lot which offered $8.00 daily rate for airline employees

This worked for me in a previous life:

My company did not go into my commuting airport (Trans States). BUT we were a US Airways commuter so I went to the US Airways management at the airport and explained the situation. They hooked me up with the Airport management that was happy to take my money. I paid them directly.

It sounds like your at Spirit. Make this same approach or better yet just see if the station manager can put you in contact with the airport manager. Unless of course, they have more pull. At Kansas City it was as simple as making a phone call from the Station manager to the airport manager. Don't know if it still works this way -- but it did at the time (2003). After all, revenue is revenue. Good luck.

If you can get an ORD SIDA badge, you can enter the employee lots (free) off Mt. Prospect Rd.

Where in the Chicagoland area will you be living?

Depending on the answer, you may find you don't need parking. Take the metra train to a spot you can get on the blue line CTA train which runs straight to ORD. Or you can take the orange line CTA to Midway. I'm an hour drive from the ORD employee parking lot (non-rush hour) and it used to take 10-15 minutes to get from there into the terminal. I can get to the terminal using the metra/blue line in exactly the same time frame minus the traffic headaches. Just something to consider if you can use the trains as an option.

If you want to get into employee parking here's the story:

Employee parking at ORD/MDW is controlled by the City of Chicago aviation dept. You have to go to their badging office in ORD with a completed form to get issued the badge. The city will only let employers with "property" on the airport badge their employees. A charter pilot that commutes out of ORD on commercial carriers can't get one because his employer has no gates or offices at ORD. Each airline/company that have employees using the employee lots, have a designated signatory. That person or persons are the ONLY ones who can sign/approve your application form in order to get the SIDA swipe card.

They will be the first person you will have to convince that a Sprirt pilot based in FL needs employee parking at ORD. If you can do that, you'll be wayyy closer to getting approved. I would check with the local gate agents you have at ORD. I would think they will be local employees who would definitely need access to ORD parking. Find out who issued them their application - you may have to deal with their supervisor, etc. With the reasonably small operation you have at ORD, it shouldn't be too hard to track down the signatory. That's the person you'll have to sweet talk into getting you a badge. If you can get it, the nice thing is the parking is totally free.

Here's a link with all the badging info and the form you'll need to get signed. Good luck.

http://www.ohare.com/badging/

Thanks very much for the info.... I can only assume that ORD badge will only get you parking at ORD and not MDW. I am told that an ORD badge might be a possibilty, unfortunatly my commute will be a tad easier from MDW. I am looking into USA coach or possibly the train, but either one is not as nice as just parking at the Airport.

I will definetly look into your suggestion though

Thank you

try local hotels. sometimes for $10-20 per time they will let you park there and ride their airport shuttle.

I think I may have found the answer with USA coach... I am told there is a discounted rate available. thanks for all the input