By Spooky on January 31st, 2025 Category: Auto
A VW Golf abandoned in the short-term parking area of a Berlin airport for a whole year has made international news headlines after racking up a whopping 201,480 euros ($209,124) in parking fees.
Airport parking fees are notoriously high, and Berlin’s Brandenburg Airport is no exception. The first ten minutes in the facility’s short-term parking area is free, after which it costs $11 for 30 minutes, $23 per hour, and $552 per day to park your car there, a significant chunk of change for any motorist. Now imagine parking a car there for a whole year. Unless you’re talking about an ultra-expensive luxury vehicle, you’d probably be better off just leaving the vehicle there than paying the ludicrous parking fees. Which is probably what the owner of a gray Volkswagen Golf told himself after leaving the car parked there since January of last year.
It’s unclear when airport authorities noticed that a car had been abandoned in their expensive parking area for at least a few months, but one thing is for sure, no one did anything about it for a whole year. Airport management, APCOA Deutschland GmbH (the parking management company), local police, and even the local district office, all denied any kind of responsibility in this case, drawing attention to the negligence surrounding long-term parking regulations.
The abandoned vehicle was finally towed away on January 28, at which point it had already accumulated a debt of 201,480 euros in parking fees, which will probably never be collected, as police have yet to identify the owner. Current leads suggest that the car may have been stolen and then abandoned at the airport, as the Hannover license plates don’t match the vehicle.
“Whether parking fees owed in this context can be collected depends on whether the debtor can be identified and has the necessary financial means,” an APCOA spokesperson told The Munich Eye.
To be fair, cars get abandoned at airports all the time, but they are mostly found in the long-term parking area, where the parking fees are considerably lower. This gray VW only made headlines because it was left in the short-term parking area where it collected over 200,000 euros in parking fees without anyone even noticing it.