[sshine]

What.

I've never heard anything this stupid.

I've only encountered the following two airport systems:

1) There's a queue of taxis and people coming out go to the first one.

2) There's a queue of people, and an airport person tells you when you can go to the next taxi.

Depending on whether there's too many people or too many taxis.

[seattle_spring]

> I've never heard anything this stupid.

I may be misunderstanding your comment, but you're saying you've never heard of online rideshare apps like Uber and Lyft?

[sshine]

Yes, I've heard of them.

But they were banned in my country years ago.

Taxis and humans queue up against each other in the countries I've went to.

[lxgr]

Maybe GP has just never taken one to/from the airport? It's really not that common to do that in many places outside of the US. In many European cities, public transit is often the fastest way to get to/from the city center from an airport.

Elsewhere, Uber is just not great compared to taxis, and supply can be minimal:

I've had to take an Uber recently for work [1] , and I effectively had a choice between one driver that would ask me to please cancel from my side because they didn't want to go to the airport, and another driver already at the airport (with Uber blatantly lying that they'd be here to pick me up in "10 minutes", when the ride takes 30 without traffic).

[1] Expensing a taxi invoice is more of a hassle. On top of that, often the card terminal mysteriously and completely unexpectedly breaks down at the end of the ride in taxis in some places, and expensing cash payments is even harder.

[sshine]

> In many European cities, public transit is often the fastest way to get to/from the city center from an airport.

Yeah, exactly.

When friends or family go to the airport, I drive them.

When I go to the airport, I take the metro. It's a 5 minute walk from home, and the metro stops inside the airport.

[paxys]

Uber/Lyft's system is that taxis wait in a (virtual) queue in an airport parking lot, and when you request one they come to the terminal to pick you up.

[lxgr]

Yeah, and that's arguably absurd. It creates dozens of people and dozens of cars all in each other's way. It's complete and utter chaos I've not experienced in any other country.

[nradov]

No, that's not how it works. The ride share drivers wait in a parking lot near the airport. Then when you hail one using the app they come pick you up in a designated zone. The app notifies you when your car arrives and you can check the license plate. It works fine most of the time, there's very little chaos. Have you ever even been to a US airport?

[cozzyd]

Some states seem to not require front plates which makes it extra annoying. Especially if I'm bad at identifying vehicle models (I basically only use Uber/Lyft when I travel for work to get to my hotel in cities with shitty or nonexistent public transport...)

[lxgr]

> Have you ever even been to a US airport?

Yes, I travel to/from US airports all the time. This is based on my personal experiences there.

Admittedly, there are some where it does work a bit better (NYC does seem to be particularly bad, but fortunately at least JFK has the AirTrain; EWR seems to be giving up on theirs).

But all in all, the experience is notably worse than in most other countries I've been to.