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LAX bans Uber and Lyft from picking up passengers at the terminal
It's about to get even harder to hail an Uber or Lyft at Los Angeles International Airport. Ride-hailing vehicles will be banned from making pickups outside LAX's terminals under new rules announced by officials on Thursday, the Los Angeles Times reports. Instead, passengers wishing to get picked up by Uber or Lyft will have to take a shuttle to a parking lot next to Terminal 1.
It's a new twist in the increasingly fraught relationship between airports and the app-based car service companies that have added to some of the confusion and congestion at most travel hubs. With more people flying than ever before and a growing share of those people expecting to use their smartphones to summon cars to pick them up, the traffic situation outside of airport terminals has reached a breaking point.
LAX is in the midst of a $14 billion revamp[*] of its aging roads and terminals. Construction has led to some road closures, while airlines are adding routes leading to an increase in passenger pickups and drop-offs.
"We understand that trying to get into the central terminal area is a challenge and has been for a long time, and we've been working to make that much better," Keith Wilschetz, deputy executive director of the Operations and Emergency Management Division at Los Angeles World Airports, told the LA Times. "This is a way we can do that."
[...] Other airports have adopted similar tactics in recent years. San Francisco International Airport, for example, recently moved almost all ride-hailing passenger pickups to the top floor of the main parking garage. Some passengers said the change has made pickups more efficient, even though it involves a longer walk from the gate. Similar changes are expected to take place at Boston's Logan International Airport.
Meanwhile, Uber and Lyft have tweaked their apps for drivers in the hopes of making drop-offs and pickups more seamless. Both companies have added a feature called rematch that allows drivers who have just dropped off a passenger to pick up a new customer without leaving the airport and waiting in an off-site area.
[*] See: LAX airport is getting a $14 billion makeover and new 'happy face' machines to rate satisfaction.
Related: Logan Airport Uber and Lyft changes set to take effect in October
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 07 2019, @03:00PM
they have always been an unregulated taxi service. The gps tracking feature is nice, why they could not just have added that to existing taxi services? Oh yeah, disruption and market share i forgot good business practice.