Uber progresses, one airport at a time

How do Uber drivers pick up their passengers at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport? Very carefully, as the old gag says.

That’s because it is still illegal for them to take on customers at Atlanta’s airport — and many other U.S. airports — and they risk getting a ticket if they are too open about it. But the drivers and their passengers have developed ways of getting around the ride-sharing police at ATL and other airports, according to a report in the New York Times.

Although many major airports have the same ride-sharing restriction as Atlanta, the article notes, Uber and other ride-sharing services are gradually making deals with airport authorities to gain access to their lucrative passenger markets.

In some cases that means rules and ordinances must be revised or rewritten, but more and more airports are “aware that the tidal wave of acceptance of the ride-hailing phenomenon will not recede,” the article says, so they’re willing to accommodate the new services.

Among the issues to be worked out is how airports can collect user fees from ride-sharing vehicles just as they do from licensed taxis, and where exactly the drivers from Uber and its rivals should park their cars while they wait for ride requests from incoming flyers.

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