I was charged $84 for parking my car at Melbourne airport for 1 day!! This is the first time I have ever need to leave my car at the airport. Why does it cost so much?

My hotel room in Hobart was only $80 and I got to have shower and free breckey.

To park the car over night its costs $84 and they dont wash it nor did they fill the tank up!

Talk about a big time ripoff!!

Easy....you probably left it in the MAIN carpark.... you know...the one right next to the terminal... thats what convenience costs regrettably....you could have gone to the long term car park and paid heaps less.. and there is a bus shuttle service in that car park which drops you at the terminal.....

It also pays to readddd the signs about parking costs when you drop your car at the close one :)

Its all very well to say "read the signs", but a major airport is not the same as a public road. Safety or the convenience of the travelling public is not the first concern.

The first concern is that a major airport is a profit opportunity for the sort of corporation I identify as an "inside tracker", but is perhaps more widely typified as a Public-Private Partnership, and that no opportunity for putting the travelling public over a barrel be passed up.

As part of this dictum, in my paranoia I think I detect a minimisation of signage in such places, a minimisation aimed at getting those who must park a vehicle to make expensive mistakes of the like that EasyTimes has just made.

Such mistakes are particularly to be encouraged amongst casual or infrequent users of the facility. Since such users only happen past infrequently, it seems the policy is to sting 'em for all they're worth when the PPP gets the chance.

It is interesting to see how parking is being handled at Newcastle Airport (Williamtown RAAF base). First, there is NO PASSENGER PICKUP ZONE outside the terminal. NO STOPPING, and there are security staff on the spot to see you stay moving right along!

Second, there is a quite large carpark right opposite the terminal building, but it always seems to be completely full, with the cars in it not seeming to turn over very much if at all. Why are these cars not parked in the more remote car parks, and this space used for passenger pickup? Real simple. That would be to pass up a chance to screw the travelling (taxpaying) public for use of the facility that they have paid for anyway out of their taxes through the defence budget!

What I am about to do now is go to Newcastle Airport to pick up my wife. We make mobile phone contact when she is with her luggage outside of the no stopping zone. I then leave my parking spot outside the airport, circuit, and pick her up. No money changes hands.

Isn't it nice to see all the calls for privatising utilities on the basis that the competition will greatly increase efficiency and drive down prices. The reality is all too often like a troll on a mountain pass. It doesn't take much thought to understand that the private sector needs to deliver a profit to justify an investment. So paying several times the cost for infrastructure will impede the ability of a society to develop. With immigration charged population growth, the huge infrastructure costs incurred ensure that private sector investment is needed, and provides an open invitation to rip off the public.

This is why so many pollies support population growth. Do you think that they are in for a cut?

I use long term parking at airports and pay about $10 a day.I parked in Myers shopping centre the other day and it cost $17 for 1 hour 10mins.Imagine how much that would cost for a day.