Has anyone used a parking company at Basel airport? I want to drive there and leave my car for a week.
Thanks.
Hi everyone,
I just used the regular airport parking. It was fine.
If you’re parking for a week, the best choice is to park on the French side of the airport in the covered parking (Parking F4). You can pre-reserve online to be sure that you’ll have a place.
And you have to cross the border before you enter the parking. Once we went to the Swiss side of the parking and lost half an hour trying to get to the French side. The was a gate between two sections of the parking but I think it required a special permit to open the gate. So we had to return to the highway to cross the border.
Sounds horrendous, especially when you are there to catch a flight!!!!
Thank you 😊
Luckily, we were there with small kids and that was our first flight from that airport, so we came much earlier, because we expected some unforeseen issues to happen.
Driving to the airport and back is the only application I've found for Mobility car sharing. It's cheaper than a taxi, a saves the issue of pulling 20 kg suitcases in trains or leaving the car for long time in the airport parking.
I’ve decided that it’s a lot of stress and I’m just going to pay the extra and fly from Zurich. Thanks everyone for your help 🥰
I’ve parked at Basel. It’s super easy to use the official airport car parks. No border crossing required (you might physically cross it but it’s all fenced and you have no idea if you’ve crossed the border - there is no control).
That is the whole point - to be able to park at the airport coming from the Swiss side without customs checks - for example, if you are just picking up someone.
That is why you can't just cross to the French side in the parking lot, if you want to park there you need to enter the EU customs area, which you can only do at official border crossings.
But I can imagine that if you are not aware of this, it could be quite stressful just trying to cross in the parking area, 30 minutes before your flight... with kids shouting and crying on the backseats...
For anyone reading this later, and just for complete clarity: to get to the French side of the airport, you continue past the airport exit on the Swiss autoroute, cross at the main Saint Louis crossing (where it is incredibly rare to be stopped / delayed) and then take the French exit to the airport (about 2-3km from the border crossing).
You can pass freely between the French and Swiss sides of the airport, but only on foot and only inside the airport (departures level). Again, while you are technically crossing a border, there are no controls in place and in practice you can wander both sides of the airport.
I personally love flying out of Basel - it’s small and convenient.