Southwest Offers a Discounted Lyft to Passengers at Dallas Love Field

APEX Insight: The debate on airport rideshares is hardly settled, but Southwest Airlines has taken a side by enticing its passengers to get a Lyft to and from Dallas Love Field.

Southwest Airlines has teamed with rideshare service Lyft to get passengers to and from Dallas Love Field (DAL) while relieving some of the airport’s peak parking problems.

The Dallas-based airline is offering its passengers $10 off Lyft airport trips in their e-mail flight confirmations. Starting June 1, Southwest customers traveling to and from DAL will start to see promotional offers.

It was only last month that DAL permitted rideshare drivers to operate on airport property, a subject of contention among many airports, taxi companies, and the drivers who are able to offer lower rates through Lyft, Uber, Sidecar and Wingz.

But Jose Torres, Media Relations at DAL provided a couple of reasons why regulating rideshare services at airports is a good idea: “This is because of the need and the importance to have transportation options for travelers, so that they don’t clog up the parking garages.”

In Dallas, a transportation-for-hire regulation was made effective on January 1, putting limos, taxis and rideshare services on an equal playing field, and holding all operators to the same permits, inspections, insurance and service rules. At DAL, this regulation entitles rideshare drivers to their own pick-up and drop-off area, just as taxis, shuttles and limos have, while at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, Uber and Lyft drivers may pull up at the passenger’s gate.

“There is nothing wrong with free-market competition as long as everyone is operating under the same set of rules,” Mayor Pro Tem Sal Espino of Fort Worth explains in an interview.

Southwest partnered with Uber for a week last year, offering a free Uber ride after four trips within Dallas. Users who ordered UberBLACK service had a chance to be picked up in a Southwest-branded vehicle stocked with in-flight swag and received $25 off their next Southwest flight.

In August last year, United Airlines offered a similar service on their mobile app in partnership with Uber, rewarding new sign-ups with 1,000 reward miles. The partnership drew much controversy, as rideshare services are perceived as a threat against traditional car services, and are considered less safe due to the lack of regulations.

On that note, Jeffrey T. Foland, executive vice-president, Marketing at United Airlines explained that the airline is simply responding to the demands of the market: “We want to provide functionality. Our customers want it. They told us they like it and they’re using the product.”

But while most airports still don’t allow rideshare drivers to pick-up passengers, the tables are slowly turning. San Francisco International and Nashville International airports were the first to allow rideshare services last year. LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy International airports have given the green light to UberX drivers so long as they have a taxi license. Los Angeles International Airport is slated to lift its ban this summer. And at airports where rideshare services are prohibited, like the world’s busiest, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International, the drivers are finding work-arounds to pick-up customers.

Read more about how airlines and airports around the world are working to drive the “vehicular leg” of a flyer’s end-to-end passenger experience.