Revolution at Düsseldorf Airport: The classic parking ticket is being abolished. In future, payment will only be made by recognizing car license plates. The airport hopes to save around ten million paper tickets per year. The new system should be in operation by next summer.
The airport wants to use the new payment model to keep a better eye on the parking spaces and make life easier for customers. Entry and exit should be faster, and you no longer have to dig out your ticket – or go to your car if you’ve forgotten it there.
These have been “typical pain points” for customers, according to airport documents. In future, you will have to enter your license plate on a touchscreen at the parking machines, which will continue to be available. Each license plate is scanned when you drive in – so the parking machine knows how long you have been parked. When you drive out, the camera then recognizes that you have paid and the barrier goes up.
License plate recognition is currently available, for example, in the “Kiss & Fly” zone in front of the departure hall. However, you are still given a paper ticket there as standard. If you are back at the exit within seven minutes, the barrier goes up automatically and you don’t even have to insert the ticket. If you stay in the short-term parking zone for longer, you have to take your parking ticket to the machine to pay extra. According to the airport, four million paper tickets are currently being taken out each year at the “Kiss & Fly” entrances alone. Another 3.8 million are added for “real” parking in the 18,000 parking spaces. Interestingly, only around 15 percent of customers pay for their ticket in cash, all the others pay with an EC or credit card, for example.
Therefore, in the future there will be far fewer parking ticket machines that accept cash at all. The current 45 or so machines will all be replaced. In many places there will be “slimmer” machines where you can only pay with a card or mobile phone. Speaking of mobile phones: Passengers should use their smartphones much more. In the tender documents for interested companies it says: “Cashless payment will also be further promoted through app payment solutions and will eliminate the need to go to the ticket machine and potential waiting times.” The entire system will be replaced mainly between January and May – i.e. after the Christmas and before the summer holidays. “The conversion should be completed in summer 2025,” said an airport spokesperson when asked by our editorial team.
The company that ultimately wins the contract for the “New Parking Facility at Düsseldorf Airport” (the official title of the contract) will be responsible for looking after the system for at least seven years. However, the end date is open if both sides want it.
A parking garage will save costs and effort: P2 – a parking garage directly at the terminal – is to be removed anyway: “As part of our life cycle management for real estate, we regularly examine alternatives and their operational and economic feasibility. What is certain is that P2 has no future and will be demolished in the medium term,” said the airport spokesman. In the documents for companies that can apply for the new parking system, the airport is a little more specific: The parking garage (seven floors, 900 spaces) will be demolished “due to the realignment of the traffic infrastructure in the terminal and driveway area.” The documents go on to say: “Implementation of the measures is to begin in mid-2029 and is expected to take place in the fourth quarter of 2030.”
The new parking deck P37 (around 1,000 additional parking spaces) is scheduled to go into operation in the second quarter of 2026. The new parking deck is primarily intended for employees, but according to the airport, “seasonal mixed use is possible”. According to the airport, the majority of passengers still arrive by car. Therefore, 18,000 parking spaces are available – plus another 2,000 for staff.
