San Francisco Blog

By John Geluardi

Early Tuesday morning, while small business owners still have the rising sun's glare in their eyes, the San Francisco Air Port Director will seek death warrant approval for at least eight shuttle businesses.

Airport Director John Martin will ask the Airport Commission to approve permits for just three shuttle companies instead of the 11 that currently provide shared ride service at the airport. The lucrative permit to cover five Bay Area counties including San Francisco will certainly go to SuperShuttle, which is owned by a French-based international conglomerate. Two smaller contracts will go to midsized companies, probably Lorries and American.

That means eight small, minority owned shuttle companies will be put out of business. Martin claims that with so many companies there is a lack of uniformity and quality control. But what he neglects to mention in his Memorandum to the commission is that the smaller companies also provide competition, which has kept fares down. SuperShuttle already charges much more than the other companies (To downtown San Francisco from the airport, SuperShuttle charges $57 for a family of four. Quake City, on the other hand, only charges $42 for the same ride). Once SuperShuttle secures its position as the major shared-ride provider, there will be nothing to stop it from raising its fares even higher.

The San Francisco Airport Commission meets at 9 a.m. Tuesday, August 19 at City Hall room 400.