Rideshare pickup stations at Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport. (Christopher Shea/Rhode Island Current)
Uber and Lyft rides to and from Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport will cost an extra dollar under new agreements recently approved by the airport’s board of directors — making them more expensive than airport pickups and dropoffs in Boston and Hartford.
Each Lyft ride that begins or ends at the Warwick airport is now subject to a $3.50 fee charged by the Rhode Island Airport Corporation (RIAC), up from $2.50. The new rate will remain in effect through Oct. 31, 2027, under the agreement approved Nov, 14 by the airport’s board of directors.
The increase now brings Lyft in line with the fee structure approved between the airport corporation and Uber on Oct.17
The $2.50 rate had been in place since 2020 under agreements with Uber and Lyft to provide curbside pickups at T.F. Green. The pair of agreements had resolved a dispute over the $6 fee the airport temporarily charged rideshare companies in 2018 to pick up passengers in the short-term parking lot.
Uber briefly suspended service at T.F. Green in April 2018 because of objections to the $6 surcharge, though it returned two months later in June at the privately-owned “Red Beam Garage C” next to the terminal and for a surcharge of $3.36.
But Lyft had remained curbside after the airport offered a compromise $5 pickup rate. Airport officials at the time offered the same pickup fee to Uber, but the company wasn’t satisfied with that rate either.
Trips in and out of Logan International Airport in Boston have been subject to a $3.25 surcharge since the Massachusetts Port Authority board of directors updated its policy in 2019. Each time an Uber or Lyft picks someone up or drops them off at Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, Connecticut, a $2.25 fee is added to the passenger’s bill.
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