Rideshare pick-up stations at Rhode Island TF Green International Airport. (Christopher Shea/Rhode Island Current)
Uber and Lyft rides to and from Rhode Island TF 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 pick-ups and drop-offs in Boston and Hartford.
Any Lyft ride that starts or ends at Warwick Airport will now be charged a $3.50 surcharge by the Rhode Island Airport Corporation (RIAC), up from $2.50. The new rate will remain in effect until October 31, 2027. under the agreement approved by the airport’s board of directors on November 14.
The increase now brings Lyft into line with the approved fee structure between the airport company and Uber on October 17
The $2.50 rate had been in effect since 2020 agreements with Uber and Lyft to offer curbside pickup at TF Green. These two agreements had resolved a dispute over the $6 fee the airport temporarily charged rideshare companies in 2018 to pick up passengers at the short-term parking lot.
Uber service at TF Green briefly suspended in April 2018 over objections to the $6 surcharge, although it returned two months later in June in the private “Red Beam Garage C” next to the terminal and for a fee of $3.36.
But Lyft stood aside after the airport offered a compromise $5 collection rate. Airport officials at the time offered the same pick-up fee to Uber, but the company wasn’t happy with that rate either.
Travel to and from Logan International Airport in Boston is subject to a $3.25 surcharge since the Massachusetts Port Authority board of directors updated its policy in 2019. Every time an Uber or Lyft picks up or drops off someone at Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, Connecticut, a $2.25 fee is added to the passenger’s bill.
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