No, it's not an April Fool's Day prank.
Starting April 1, hourly parking rates at the airport will be reduced from $3 per hour to $2 per hour.
The Sault Ste. Marie Airport is reducing the cost of hourly parking to encourage more drivers to take advantage of it.
Fifteen minutes of free parking will continue to be available in the lot.
Terry Bos, the Sault Ste. Marie Airport's CEO, said the change will improve safety, traffic flow and convenience for people picking up or dropping off travellers.
"We're lowering the hourly fee, which used to be our short-term parking, to try and encourage people to use the hourly parking area," Bos said.
His hope is that people will not park "all over the property and in places that make it dangerous in case there was a fire or an incident and vehicles have to get by — we don't want vehicles all over the road," he said.
"If you're just dropping off or picking up somebody, you could do it in 15 minutes and be gone. If you're going to be a little longer, then we've lowered the rate in order to make it a little less costly to park here on an hourly basis."
The April 1 start date aligns with the start of the airport's new fiscal year.
While the hourly parking at the airport will be reduced, Bos said the long-term parking rates will increase slightly starting on April 1.
"We're raising the long-term parking rates a little in order to obviously try to generate more funds to operate the airport," said Bos.
Daily parking will increase from $13 per day to $14, while the weekly rate will increase from $65 per week to $70 per week.
Bos said there are two vending machines for parking in the airport building, one that takes cash, debit and credit, and a second that takes only debit and credit. People can also pay with debit or credit directly at the gate.