Lyft vs Uber App: California May Make It More Expensive for Car Service Drivers to Pick Up Airport Fares
Look out, taxi cab drivers, regular people are using their personal cars to steal your potential passengers. A new fee for Lyft and Uber drivers may soon make this more difficult to do so in airports, however.
Lyft and Uber are two popular smartphone app-based ride-hailing services. At any time, a would-be customer can open the Lyft or Uber app and request a ride. Within minutes, a driver shows up, and the ride starts.
One place where it is popular to need a ride is the airport. A passenger lands in a new city, gathers their bags and heads outside. In the past, this passenger would hail a taxi or an expensive car service. Now, with Lyft and Uber, users can get an affordable ride without the hassle of trying to flag down a taxi.
In California, where Lyft was born, however, many of these drivers could be breaking the law. Because they are using their own cars and not paying the same fees taxis and limos pay to pick up passengers at the airport, drivers are in effect dodging these fees and taxes.
"All the other options for ground transportation pay some fee to the airport, and these guys are not now doing that anywhere, except (San Francisco International Airport)," Jim Lites, executive director of the California Airports Council, an industry trade group representing the state's commercial airports, said according to the Orange County Register.
Now, California could be adding a $2.25 fee so Lyft and Uber drivers can continue picking up passengers at airports.
Uber and Lyft are competitors but operate almost exactly the same. In the past, Uber was a black car service with nice leather-seated cars. Now, there is UberX, which is Uber's version of Lyft: just a regular driver in a regular car available to pick up passengers at their request.
During prime hours, especially weekends, both Uber and Lyft charge prime-time fees where rides can be anywhere from 25 percent to 300 percent higher than normal rates. Uber said this pricing model is a good thing for riders, according to the New York Post.
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