If you’re looking to hail a ride at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport any time soon, you won’t be hopping in an Uber quite yet: after seeing how Newark Liberty International Airport deals with ride-sharing companies, city officials are hitting pause on proposed rules that required drivers to submit to fingerprint-based background checks.
A delegation of city and airport officials from Atlanta visited Newark to learn about its agreement with ride-hailing companies like Lyft and Uber, which doesn’t require fingerprint checks, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.
“What we learned is that there’s actually additional due diligence in Newark’s contract that actually yields more information than a fingerprinting would,” said Katrina Taylor Parks deputy chief of staff for Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed.
Fingerprinting “does not give you everything all of the time. So what Newark did was they added layers…. that it made more comprehensive,” she said, adding that officials will have to look at Georgia law as well.
Though the goal was to legalize Uber and Lyft pickups at the airport by July 1, now that plans are on hold, “it’s difficult to say at this time” if it will happen in that time frame, Hartsfield-Jackson general Manager Miguel Southwell said.
Uber objected to the proposed plan in March, saying that requirements like fingerprint checks, as well as a $10,000 annual fee, and a $1.50 cut of every fare, would make it “impossible” for the company to operate at the airport.
Proposal for Uber pickups at Hartsfield-Jackson in holding pattern [The Atlanta Journal-Constitution]
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist