Picking up passengers at the San Diego International Airport? Avoid driving in circles and park in the airport’s Cell Phone Lot free of charge. Beginning Saturday, May 8, this temporary way-station will reopen and offer approximately 100 parking spaces for drivers to park and wait for arriving passengers. The airport Cell Phone Lot closed in April 2020 when state and county health and safety orders increased and passenger volumes decreased with the spread of COVID-19.
We see the reopening of our Cell Phone Lot as a sign of recovery. During March and April, we saw some of the highest passenger volumes since the start of the pandemic. While it’s safe to attribute this increase to schools being on spring break, we also believe people are getting vaccinated and feeling more confident about traveling.
While we are still seeing only about half the passenger volumes we had in 2019, we are continuing to maintain an uptick in people traveling through our airport. Reopening our Cell Phone Lot not only gives people an option to wait in a designated off-site location with easy access to the terminals, but it also reduces the numbers of cars waiting at the terminals’ curbside or driving around the parking structures.
The Cell Phone Lot is located at 3015 N. Harbor Drive, with the entrance at the intersection of N. Harbor Drive and Liberator Way. The hours of operation are from 5:00 to 12:30 a.m., seven days a week. For more information, please visit www.san.org/Parking.