Rental Pickup at McGhee Tyson Airport

Drive865 is not a counter-based rental company at TYS. There's no Drive865 booth at the airport. Instead, your car is already parked in Economy Lot C when you land, and you walk to it with a lockbox code we send you the night before.

From baggage claim, walk all the way right to the curb and look for the Economy Lot shuttle. It runs every 15 minutes. Take it to Shuttle Stop C-1A. From the stop, your car is in Section Orange 1 of the lot. We send you a photo with exact placement once the car is dropped off, so you're not hunting for it.

The lockbox sits on the exterior of the vehicle with a 4-digit code. Inside the lockbox is the key. After you have it, unshackle the lockbox and put it in the glove compartment — you'll need it again for drop-off. The whole pickup process takes 5–10 minutes from baggage claim to ignition.

TYS does have on-airport counter rentals — Enterprise, Hertz, Avis, Budget, National. They work fine. They also have lines after every flight, mandatory damage-walk inspections, hard-sell upgrades, and a credit card hold that ties up several hundred dollars for the trip. Off-airport pickup skips all of that.

The other thing off-airport gets you: real cars. Counter rentals at TYS are typically mid-size sedans and crossovers — fine for a business trip, wrong for the reason most people fly to Knoxville. If you're flying in to drive Tail of the Dragon or the Smokies, the car matters as much as the road. Drive865 picks the car around the trip.

Economy Lot C charges a parking fee on the way out — usually $7–$11 depending on how long your car has been there before pickup. The guest pays this at pickup (we have to pay it at drop-off when we collect the car after your trip), and we reimburse anything over $11.

Return is the same lot. You don't have to return to the exact same spot — Economy Lot C, B, or A all work. Just photograph where you left it and message us. Lock the car, scramble the lockbox code, and head to your terminal. Refuel before drop-off (closest station is Maryville Pike, two minutes off the lot).