On this page (5 sections)
The quick chooser
Start from the trip, not the car park.
| Your trip | Use | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Goodbye at the doors | Premium Set Down | Kerbside, £7 for 15 minutes |
| Goodbye for free | Drop Off Car Park | 10 free minutes, 400-metre walk for the flyer |
| Hours to a weekend | Car Parks 1, 2 and 3 | A minute from check-in, undercover |
| A week or more | Car Park 5 (7 in summer) | Lowest rates, walk or free shuttle |
| Collecting someone | Car Park 5 | The spot for meeting a flight; £12 for the first hour |
| Nobody parks | Valet Parking | Hand the keys over at the terminal |
| Blue Badge | Premium Set Down bays | First 30 minutes free, closest access |
Each row has a full guide behind it: drop-off, pick-up, short stay, long stay, meet and greet and Blue Badge parking. What follows is the same ground organised by car park number, for anyone who already has a number in mind.
Number by number
Six numbered sites, two premium corners and one to avoid.
Car Park 1
The closest numbered car park: a multi-storey about a minute from the check-in desks, open around the clock, undercover, with lifts to every level and over 3000 bays. It takes any length of stay, but its rates suit hours and days rather than weeks, so think of it as the drop-in choice when the walk matters most.
Car Parks 2 and 3
The everyday pair next door: the same one-minute walk, undercover, lifts throughout, over 2000 spaces between them, usually a shade cheaper than Car Park 1 for the same dates. Inside Car Park 3 sit the 67 Priority Parking bays, ground-level spaces sold pre-book only, for anyone who wants a guaranteed spot by the lifts without paying valet money.
Car Park 4
A few minutes out along a covered walkway on Trident Road, with a 24-hour accessible shuttle every 15 minutes for anyone who would rather ride. It suits longer stays that still want a walkable distance, and the covered route matters more than it sounds in January.
Car Park 5
The long-stay workhorse and the cheapest year-round site: a surface car park, 5 to 10 minutes on foot or a free shuttle running every 15 minutes around the clock from bus stops 2, 6 and 7. No height limit, either. It doubles as the pick-up spot for collections; the long-stay guide covers it properly.
Car Park 7
The summer-season site on the far side of the runway, aimed at week-plus trips and priced with Car Park 5. The trade: a free transfer bus taking 10 to 15 minutes, run for pre-booked customers, instead of any walk. It closes over winter, so it is a booked-ahead choice, never a turn-up punt.
Priority bays, Premium Pre-Booked, and the Freeport trap
Two premium corners exist for people who count every step: the Priority bays in Car Park 3 above, and Premium Pre-Booked, a row of blue-lined bookable bays inside the Premium Set Down zone itself, the closest parking there is. And one site to strike off: the Freeport Car Park takes turn-up traffic nearby but has no transfers to the terminal, and the airport itself tells passengers not to use it.
Vans, roof boxes and height limits
The multi-storeys stop at 2.05 to 2.15 metres; the surface site takes anything.
Car Park 1 clears vehicles up to 2.15 metres and Car Parks 2 and 3 up to 2.05 metres, which catches high-top vans, loaded roof boxes and most motorhomes. Anything over the bar goes to Car Park 5, the surface site with no height restriction, and enjoys the lowest rates on the airport as a consolation. Measure the car with the box on, not from memory; the barrier will not take your word for it.
Cost order and booking
The further from the doors, the cheaper the week; booking early beats everything.
As a rule the price falls with distance: the long-stay tier at the bottom, Car Parks 2 and 3 in the middle, Car Park 1 and the premium bays at the top, with the exact figure set by demand for your dates. That makes the booking play more important than the car park: reserve on the airport's pre-book site as soon as dates firm up, since pre-booking is routinely the difference between a fair price and the turn-up tariff on the boards, and the airport's own headline claims savings of up to 70% on longer pre-booked stays. If the mission is the lowest possible number, including the off-airport compounds and the hotel-and-parking route, the cheap parking guide runs the honest comparison. The airport's own where-to-park page carries the live product list.
Not parking at all
Goodbyes and hellos have their own zones, and their own rules.
If the car is stopping rather than staying, this page is the wrong tool. Dropping someone off is a choice between 10 free minutes in the Drop Off Car Park and £7 at the kerb, covered in the drop-off guide; collecting someone means waiting in Car Park 5, covered in the pick-up guide; and handing the car over entirely is the meet and greet job. For the drive in, the sat-nav postcode is B26 3QJ, and every option above starts from the same parking overview.