Who Actually Pays to Tow Abandoned Cars Left at the Airport Might Surprise You
Abandoned airport cars have become their own odd little genre on TikTok. People film walk-by tours of long-term garages, panning across sun-bleached hoods and dusty windshields covered with messages from bored travelers.
These cars sit untouched for so long that viewers start guessing the backstory. Missed flight? Deployment? Someone finally gave up on airport parking fees and walked home?
At San Antonio International Airport in Texas, the joke turned into a real problem
News 4 San Antonio’s I-Team went hunting for the cars behind the TikTok posts and found several that had been sitting for months. A few looked like they had been parked since 2023.
Tires had gone flat. One had a broken window. Visitors scrawled notes in the grime like “Hope you make it back” and “Hello from Cleveland.”
Someone even wrote a jab about the airport’s new parking rules for some veterans. Other vets have come forward, claiming that these cars fill spots veterans and the elderly might take instead.
The garage has a 30-day limit, but that policy only works when someone enforces it
Airport Deputy Director Sam Rodriguez explained that the tools exist to track how long cars sit, but staff had fallen behind.
He also explained that enforcement, resources, and customer service all play a role. Once the I-Team started asking questions in mid-November, the city’s contractor, Metropolis SP Plus, began towing.
27 abandoned cars left the garage that same day. The city said the timing was a “coincidence” and that it planned to clear them before the Thanksgiving travel push, anyway.
Here’s the part that stings a little
When those cars move from the garage to an outside lot, the city pays the initial relocation costs.
In other words, Rodriguez explained, taxpayers cover that step. And because the cars sat for so long, the city missed out on $16 a day in parking fees. Over months, that grows into real money.
The city will try to track down the owners and recover what it can. If that fails, the cars might head to auction. Until then, those dusty airport TikTok cars remind us that the filled spot can quietly become a taxpayer bill.
