Phoenix airport has every right to recoup costs from Uber and Lyft

As director of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, I take great issue with the accusations that are being made against the Phoenix City Council and Sky Harbor regarding Uber and Lyft. The public is being misled and most people just don’t have the facts, so here they are.

Ride-share companies must pay to access airport facilities, services and improvements, which is not only fair; it’s legal. This is consistent with all other companies doing business at Sky Harbor, many of them local, small businesses who willingly pay for their access to and use of one of the best airports in the country.

Opponents of the fees are misleading the public. They either aren’t reading the Constitution or are choosing not to pay attention to what it says. To be clear, these fees do not apply to rides anywhere other than to or from the cityowned, city-managed airport.

And nothing in the Constitution bars the city of Phoenix, just like any other property owner or business operator, from conditioning access to its property on the payment of a fee. Quite the opposite, many businesses pay fees to access and use the airport in order to make a profit. Uber and Lyft should be treated no differently.

Claims that Phoenix would be the first airport in the country without rideshare businesses are baffling. Numerous airports around the country charge the same, if not higher than $4 and others are raising fees as we speak. Yet Phoenix is the only place Uber and Lyft are threatening to leave. We are not a second-class city. And we are not going to require ride-share passengers to walk a long distance or even board a bus like they have to at LAX. Why are Phoenix customers different from those at airports in Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, San Francisco, Washington, Houston and San Diego?

In fact, the Phoenix plan is better than at other airports in that it allows customers to access ride-share service right at the terminal curb or at the 44th Street PHX Sky Train station. That’s not the case at airports like LAX and others.

Let me be clear. This charge is absolutely not a tax. It’s a charge to a profitmaking business for the use of airport facilities. In fact, since 1967, no tax revenue has supported the airport.

All improvements since the construction of Terminal 2 have been paid for through business rents, parking, airline tickets and other purchases that airport customers make – not taxes on airport users. Phoenix Sky Harbor would not be what it is today without the constant upkeep and improvements paid for through airport revenues.

We want to have a good relationship with the transportation providers who serve our mutual customers. In fact, we worked together with the ride-share companies for the past year, studying what other airports do and how fees are charged. And now they are acting like this similar fee to those charged at other airports is a big surprise.

The public is being misled, but not by Phoenix.