McAllen International Airport’s parking situation, building, and terminals are undergoing massive changes. Here’s what you need to know.

City leaders are getting closer to approving some big changes to the McAllen International Airport, a 33 year old building that was last expanded about a decade ago. 

Some of those changes include a new parking situation to prioritize travelers who need short-term spaces before catching flights instead of casual visitors to a terminal expansion that could help the city attract more airlines and offer a higher volume of flights and a new building facade to give visitors a lasting impression. 

The total cost of the project is at least $100 million but could cost upwards of $170 million depending on the final design, budget and financing which will be with airport revenue bonds. Only about $7 million of the project so far is coming from Federal Aviation Administration grant funding. 

After reviewing the parking lot use and revenue, since the airport is a stand-alone enterprise fund not paid for by property taxes, the most popular parking option was closest to the building, short-term and free. 

About 67% of the total transactions at the parking lot were for fewer than 2 hours but accounted for 6% of the revenue. Whereas travelers seeking to pay for parking then fly out represent 89% of the airport parking revenue but 25% of the transactions. 

The peak parking demand is during Spring Break, which is how the city is gauging max capacity and demand where lots are often 97% full and an overflow lot is opened for now. Officials are seeking to avoid an expensive stand-alone parking garage and opt for surface lots. 

The newest public overflow parking lot is under construction across the street next to a hotel with 197 spaces in addition to a new cell phone temporary lot with 44 spaces. There is an economy lot with 318 parking spaces, a short-term lot with 231 parking spaces and a long-term lot with 820 spaces. The overflow parking lot which would be for employees is expected to cost $11 a day then an undetermined amount for airport tenant employees. 

The airport plans to eliminate the existing free 30-minute parking in its short-term and long-term lots and relocate that free option to a new dedicated cell phone waiting lot expected to open Nov. 1.

For the long-term lot, which is further away from the doors, the minimum would be $6. For the short-term lot, the minimum would be $5 for the first hour. Reserved parking for short-term would cost $20 a day. Long-term weekly parking would cost $72, up from $60. 

The new cell phone waiting lot will offer free parking for up to 30 minutes while drivers wait for arriving passengers. After 30 minutes, drivers would pay $5 for up to one hour, $10 for up to two hours, and $15 for up to 24 hours.

“I think we are making a conscious effort to make sure that we have spaces available for the traveling public and there’s other options, there’s the TNCs [transportation network companies], taxis, rideshares and asking your family members to drop you off,” said Jeremy Santoscoy McAllen International Airport Director told the Rio Grande Valley Business Journal. “But our customer wants to find a parking space and fly out. Our capacity issues have gotten to the point where even the mall has gotten into the parking business [across the street].” 

New fees will be considered in September 2026, and rate changes would likely take effect in November 2026. 

Airport officials said the proposed changes are intended to reserve the closest parking spaces for travelers while directing those waiting to pick up passengers to the new cell phone lot.

“As we continue to grow we have capacity challenges in the terminal and we have them on the land side too with parking,” Santoscoy said. “What that does for us is it helps us free up some of the parking that’s on the east side which we typically used as overflow parking [changed to economy] to help us with capacity. Growing the [parking] capacity about 17% with surface parking will be a big help for us.”

The planned upgrades would more space for 31 instead of 25 ticket counters, bigger baggage claim, restrooms, seating, concession before security checkpoint, 10 new gates in a new concourse and retrofitting of the existing concourse with more concession space. Meanwhile, the city’s existing building air handler units, aka the building’s air conditioning, “have already failed on us a couple of times” and the city is working on power redundancy, officials said during a June 2026 workshop. 

Santoscoy previously told officials that he pushed the designers to reduce any excess space or unnecessary flourishes – removing 10,000 square feet from a previous plan. 

“We didn’t want to overdo the concession program in that new concourse, we wanted to make sure whatever expansion we did would be appropriate for what we would be doing,” Santoscoy said. “We didn’t want to be building something and have empty [retail and food] spots.” 

McAllen airport saw more than 1 million passengers on its flights in 2024, a record for the city. That metric has remained steady in 2025 with 1.1 million passengers and is on track to do the same in 2026, officials said. The 2015 renovations did add a new gate but the passenger traffic has continued to grow. 

“That helped us get through a few years but now we’re outgrowing what we expanded on in 2015,” Santoscoy said. “This expansion would really help us add the capacity that we need.” 

Monthly domestic flight passenger trends at the McAllen International Airport do fluctuate due to seasonality but in general have increased over the past decade with the exception of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. 

For example, in April 2016, there were 27,593 total passengers at the airport for domestic flights which has increased to 44,484 in April 2026, according to U.S. Department of Transportation Bureau of Transportation Statistics data. 

For those domestic flights the load factor, which measures how full flights are, has mostly increased over the past decade too. When the airport plans for expansion were first introduced several years ago, domestic flight load factor was hitting nearly 90% in 2022. 

In 2025, there was some softness in load factor and passenger travel but load factor bounced back in 2026 while passenger totals did drop in April over the year, slightly. 

“We’ve been trying to be as proactive as possible to be able to work with the challenges that have been created because of the growth not just with the land but the air service needs to our region,” Santoscoy told the Business Journal. 

When asked whether projections about passenger demand will continue to grow until 2029, Santoscoy said that’s what consultants have shared. 

Correction: This story has been updated to clarify that the airport’s free 30-minute waiting period will be offered in a new cell phone waiting lot scheduled to open Nov. 1.