Sky Harbor cuts fee hike on taxis, Uber, Lyft

You’ll pay a few cents more if you take Uber or Lyft to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport in 2019, but you have your fellow commuters to thank for that increase not being much higher.

The Phoenix Airport Authority recently reduced an increase of the airport’s trip fee. The fee is paid on fares for taxis, hotel shuttles, ride-sharing companies and shuttles to off-airport parking lots such as the Parking Spot.

It was scheduled to increase to $3.25 on Jan 1. However, after reviewing projected numbers for 2019, airport staff rolled that back to $2.66.

That’s up slightly from $2.56 charged in 2018.

Trip fees pay for maintaining infrastructure around the airport, including curb and roadway maintenance, as well as paying the employees who work the curb to enforce rules, direct traffic and help passengers.

A Phoenix ordinance requires the airport to conduct this review each year. The ordinance caps the amount of money the airport may collect from the fee so that it only recoups the amount necessary to maintain the curbs and roadways. The airport must roll back the fee if it anticipates it will collect more than this anticipated amount in the following year. The airport projected that in 2019 it would collect $1.5 million more than the ordinance allowed.

The airport was in a similar situation last year and reduced the 2018 fee from the projected $2.75 to the current $2.56.

Nearly 62 percent of the paid ground transportation at Sky Harbor in 2018 came from services like Uber and Lyft. That’s up from 50 percent in 2017.