Top Parking Spots While Waiting at Birmingham Airport
It has to be the most asked question that we get when doing Birmingham Airport transfers, “Yes, where exactly do you park when waiting for clients on a pickup?”
The Premium Set-Down area right in front of the Birmingham Airport terminal is £5 for 15 minutes. Overstay that and you could be faced with an eye-watering £50 for an hour!
So here at Cathedral Travel we park up and wait close by until we get a message reply from the client that they have their bags, Then we swing into the zone to pickup. The system works well; you can find out more about BHX private hire pickup options in this blog entry.
The roads directly outside of the airport have all got double yellow lines, so apart from a few closed car park entrances around the NEC, you won’t find a convenient waiting space there. There’s also a small white Toyota camera van that lurks around corners catching those who dropoff or wait.
Here’s our three favourite spots to wait at BHX.
1) The Motocycle Museum
Situated on the other side of the M42 roundabout, the Motorcycle Museum is just a few minutes away. There’s lots of parking, shade under the trees in the summer and even a coffee shop and toilet inside.
Our Mercedes VClass parked up at the Motorcycle Museum
It doesn’t take long to get to the pickup, but if there is a large conference on you can get stuck in traffic trying to get out.
2) Starley Way
It’s the first road on the adjacent industrial estate that you can park on and is frequented by many private hire vehicles.
Parked up close to BHX waiting for clients.
It is a busy road through even at night and the large articulated lorries that service the companies on the road tend to use it as a quarter mile drag strip. We have even seen a group of waiting drivers around a foldable picnic table having lunch on the pavement!
3) The Train Station Short Stay Car Park
It is convenient, but there are signs saying that parking is limited to 20 minutes. It is only a matter of time before either cameras go up or it gets patrolled on a regular basis.
The Birmingham International short stay car park is free for 20 minutes
We tend to park here at night as we think it is safer, however let us tell you about an incident that happened at 3am one morning.
The VClass was parked on the short stay car park. It was dark and it was the only vehicle around. A BMW cruised slowly down Station Link Road, around the roundabout, back past the car park only to do the same route again. It looked very suspicious. It then entered the car park and pulled up alongside the VClass. We were naturally a bit worried what would happen next.
A man got out, approached the Merc and gestured to roll our window down, which we did reluctantly by about 5mm.
“Do you know where the airport is?” he said.
We were relieved to say the least!