The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terminal-to-terminal shuttle up for rebid
Contract requires operation of at least eight shuttles in rotation per hour.
Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport again is rebidding its contract for shuttle service between the international and domestic terminals, the latest step after years of contracting delays.
The terminal-to-terminal shuttle service has generated complaints from travelers about long waits as they tried to get home after overseas flights.
The shuttles take arriving international travelers with their baggage to the domestic terminal, where there’s a MARTA station, or to the rental car center. The shuttles operate outside the terminals, while the Plane Train inside the airport whisks ticketed passengers between terminals and concourses in security-screened areas.
Hartsfield-Jackson general manager Balram Bheodari said in a written statement the new contract “is certain to improve our passenger experience.”
“We are looking forward to a refresh in customer service and increased efficiency,” Bheodari said.
The airport is inviting companies to compete for a twoyear contract, with an option for a one-year renewal at the city of Atlanta’s discretion. The city runs the airport and manages the contracting process.
The contract would require operation of at least eight shuttles in rotation per hour, 365 days a year, with service every 15 minutes, said a “request for proposals” document released Thursday.
“The ultimate goal is to ensure that passenger airport curbside wait times do not exceed 15 minutes,” the document said.
The rebid comes after an Atlanta City Council committee last year declined to approve a contract for a new operator, after weeks of vehement opposition from the company that currently runs the service.
A-National Limousine has had the terminal-to-terminal shuttle contract since 2017. A contracting process for a new shuttle contractor began in 2020 but was canceled because of uncertainties created by the pandemic, said airport officials. Another contracting process in 2022 was unsuccessful. Meanwhile, A-National’s contract has been extended multiple times.
Last year, Hartsfield-Jackson through the city’s contracting process chose a joint venture called ABM-All N One Security Services to operate the shuttles. But A-National filed a protest of the decision, and A-National representatives spoke at multiple council meetings over a period of weeks to voice their opposition.
A-National contended that ABM-All N One Security Services should not win the contract under the terms released, including a small business enterprise requirement, because New York-based ABM is a large firm. ABM’s partner All N One Security Services is an Atlanta-based contract security firm certified as a Small Business Enterprise.
City Council member Marci Collier Overstreet said in November after the council committee’s decision that officials needed to rebid the contract “with clear guidelines.”
Tens of thousands of Americans are hospitalized with COVID-19 every week. Thousands die from it every month. Yet an antiviral treatment proven to lessen the chances of severe outcomes is going underused.
The drug, Paxlovid, is lauded by experts as a powerful tool that can prevent hospitalization and death from COVID-19. But the high price and doctors’ hesitation to prescribe the pills mean the five-day treatment isn’t getting to everyone who would benefit from it.
“When you read in your local newspaper that in this hospital, they’ve got this many COVID patients — most of those are preventable hospitalizations,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins University who sees Paxlovid as a useful tool to treat COVID-19.
One study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that Paxlovid can decrease hospitalization risks among adults by 51%. The drug is recommended for older people and other adults with certain underlying conditions, and can be prescribed for kids as young as 12.
When Paxlovid first was authorized for emergency use in the U.S. in December 2021, it was free for anyone who needed it. But once the government stopped funding the treatment, Pfizer set a list price of $1,390.
The drug remains free for people on federal insurance programs, like Medicaid and Medicare, through the end of this year, and uninsured people also can get it for free. But many of those people must go through a patient assistance program run by Pfizer to get the discounts. People on commercial insurance with high out-of-pocket costs can get financial help through a separate co-pay assistance program.
The people most likely to benefit from Paxlovid were the least likely to get it in 2022, a recent study said. The study by Harvard researchers found that Paxlovid was disproportionately given to Medicare patients with lower risk of severe infection. If it had been properly utilized, the authors concluded, more than 16,000 COVID19 deaths could have been prevented.
Independent pharmacy owners find Paxlovid is expensive to carry because of reimbursement rates from commercial insurers, said Kurt Proctor, a senior vice president at the National Community Pharmacists Association. “If you’re losing 5% on a $10 prescription, it’s very different than losing 5% on a $1,400 prescription product,” he said.
The high list price also is turning off some patients.
When Celise Ballow, of Junction, Utah, got COVID-19 recently, she never got the medication.
Ballow said her doctor declined to write her a prescription after telling her it wouldn’t be covered by her insurance. Now she wonders if she could have avoided some of the infection’s worst effects if she had been able to get the medication.
“I’m going on a month and a half and I’m still having nebulizer treatments . ... I’m still exhausted,” Ballow said.
Another factor hurting uptake appears to be the long list of medications that shouldn’t be taken with Paxlovid. Many doctors may simply decide the risk of drug interactions isn’t worth it.
“If people are on four or five different medications, it does tend to be a pain to double-check ‘is there an interaction here?’” said Dr. Sarah George, an infectious diseases professor at St. Louis University. Seeing a possible significant drug interaction “tends to put a physician off from prescribing a drug, even if there is a workaround.”
Dr. Michael Barnett, a Harvard health policy researcher who co-wrote the Harvard study, said it shouldn’t be that way.
“There are very few medications and very few patients whose potential medication interaction with Paxlovid is so severe that they’re better off not taking Paxlovid,” he said. “Very few of them are important enough that it’s a big risk to stop for a week.”
Paxlovid isn’t the only antiviral medication for COVID-19. Merck’s Lagevrio is another available pill, though it’s proven to be less popular in the U.S. than Paxlovid. A third drug, Gilead’s Veklury, is given via infusion.