Airport shuttles approved

The long-awaited and frequently delayed saga of airport shuttles has come to an end, as City Council has finally approved a deal to bring them to Houston.

The shuttle will cost between $18 and $25, depending on the destination, about half as much as a taxi. It will pick up travelers at their homes, businesses or hotels and drive them to the airport, likely stopping to pick up other passengers on the way, with a maximum of three stops.

Passengers must call ahead to be picked up at home, but reservations aren't necessary when traveling from the airport to a destination within the city.

Travelling with young'uns means the Kuffner family will not be using this option, but I can see myself (and my wife) using it when we travel by ourselves for business. It's not a concern about price that would tempt me to use this, as airport parking is a business expense that gets reimbursed. It's the frequently awful experience of airport parking, where you have the choice of drving up and down the aisles in search of an available space (and then remembering where that was when you return), or parking in a satellite lot and hoping that it's not raining when you get back. Being dropped off at the front door of the terminal has a lot of appeal. And for sure, I expect to point out this service to people when they fly in to visit us. Anything that cuts down on the number of times I have to circle Terminal C waiting for someone to emerge from baggage claim is okay in my book.

Unfortunately, to get this new shuttle service, the existing limited-destination shuttle service was put out of business.

The project was stalled because several council members were concerned about awarding the contract to only one company, which they said created a monopoly. The contract also will end scheduled ground transportation, which runs between hotels and airports at set times, after a grace period of several months. That effectively will put one company, Texans Shuttle, out of business.

"It never should be our intention to destroy one particular market or one particular company for another," said Councilman Jarvis Johnson, who voted against the measure along with Ada Edwards, Anne Clutterbuck and Peter Brown. The vote was 11-4.

Mohammed Bedru of Texans Shuttle, which employs about 35 drivers, said his employees likely will lose their jobs.

"The city is really favoring Yellow Cab and closing a minority business," he said. His company, which lost the contract bid, and other taxi drivers say Yellow Cab was chosen for the project because of its clout in the city, where it controls more than half the taxi business.

Johnson offered an amendment to the contract that would have allowed Texans Shuttle to continue to operate, but his colleagues voted it down after White said SuperShuttle likely would refuse to run its service under that condition.

"This absolutely increases competition because now you have taxi services and now you have this service in addition to that. So the traveler has more choices," White said.

Technically, this is correct. Unless you were going to a hotel, shuttles were not an option, and now they are. That is a new choice for me. And as I said before, the real competition for SuperShuttle is taxis and satellite lots. It'd be better to have more than one shuttle service, but not having more than one does not a monopoly make.

Having said that, I don't understand the rationale for shutting down Texans Shuttle. It's possible that they couldn't have survived with SuperShuttle in the market as well, but that's hardly a justification for forcing them out. I can accept that two full service shuttles might be one too many to survive in Houston, but I can't accept the argument that the limited TexansShuttle was a threat to SuperShuttle. Frankly, if it was, then maybe SuperShuttle shouldn't have won the contract. This is just wrong. I'm in full agreement with Kevin in his assessment of the situation.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on September 14, 2006 to Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | TrackBack