LAX bans Uber and Lyft from picking up passengers at the terminal

[Eugene]

Source: The Verge

LAX bans Uber and Lyft from picking up passengers at the terminal

Welcome to Los Angeles

By Andrew J. Hawkins @andyjayhawk Oct 4, 2019, 10:44am EDT

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.”

Passengers will have to wait three to five minutes for the shuttle to take them to the nearby parking lot, or they can walk, which should take 18 minutes at most, officials say.

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Read more: https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/4/20898596/lax-uber-lyft-ban-pickup-terminal

[kimbutgar]

1. In Europe they are getting weary of these companies

Flew into Barcelona recently and they have banned Uber and Lyft. . There was a massive taxi protest that shut down the airport over those companies. And the government listened to the taxi cab drivers and banned them at the airport.

Personally I applaud LAX for doing this. AT SFO they banned them from terminal and one has to go to another lot o get picked up. Personally I will never use these companies.
.

[wasupaloopa]

2. The streets in front of the LAX terminal doors are a zoo. Shuttles are the best way to go. I usually

park in a long term parking garage outside the terminal and take a shuttle to my terminal door.

The reverse is just as easy.

[customerserviceguy]

3. The last time I was at

the airport in Portland, Oregon, it seemed as if Lyft had taken over. There was less space (and further to go, dragging luggage) for hotel shuttles.

Flying has become a major pain the the ass.