Uber willing to pay fees to pick up passengers at SJU airport

Uber, the transport network company (ERT, for its initials in Spanish), is willing to pay the administrators of the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport (LMM) the service charge to collect passengers, contrary to statements by the president of the Puerto Rico Operators, Tourists, Guides and Excursionists (Protge, for its initials in Spanish) José Poupal, who said that the negotiations between Uber and Aerostar are at a standstill.

“We can not provide details of this specific negotiation. What we can assure is that we are in favor of paying a charge as long as it is similar to what other services pay, as the law states, “confirmed the communications director for Uber’s Andean, Central America and the Caribbean Region, Martha. Castro.
In fact, Uber said that the company complies with paying a fee at some airports similar to LMM and provided examples to emphasize that they are willing to comply with the provisions approved in the regulations of the Public Service Commission (CSP, for its initials in Spanish) in force since early May.

“The charge varies by location, and aspects such as cost of living, size of airport should be considered, charges to other services should be taken into account. When compared to airports of similar size, we can point out that at the San Antonio Texas airport, there is a charge of $ 1.00 per pickup and at a slightly larger airport such as Palm Beach International it is $ 2.50 per pickup, “added the Chief of Communications of Uber.

To questions from Caribbean Business about how the process compares the negotiations with Aerostar with other agreements that the company has reached with other airport managers in terms of the speed of the process, Castro indicated that she cannot confirm the time taken for this type of negotiation, since it varies depending on the case.

“The only reason why a negotiation has not taken place is because they have definitely not reached an agreement on the cost of access. We have to start from the premise that we (tourist taxi drivers, excursion, and limousine operators) practically pay a large part of the payroll of the employees of Aerostar “, expressed the president of Protge at the beginning of the week.

Poupal also indicated to have reliable information that Uber seeks to be exempted from the $1.00 charge for each driver who arrives at the LMM in search for passengers. This “fee” will increase to $ 3.00 by the end of August.

“Everything related to the Uber fees is part of the confidential negotiations with Uber and at the moment we cannot discuss them,” Aerostar said in a written statement, alluding to the existence of non-disclosure agreements between the parties.

By Rafelli González
Uber willing to pay fees to pick up passengers at SJU airport