[Initial D]

Whenever I'm at SFO or the Oakland Airport, I always get the message to drive to the airport for a ride from Lyft after I'm really close to the top of the queue. I was wondering, is the queue still moving while this message is up? I usually wait on Lyft and get a request for Uber, so I can tell what type of ride I will get matched with (Don't want to lose my spot & get nickel and dimed with Shared/Pool rides and it's dangerous+inconvenient for pax).

 

[Larry$$$]

It means what it means...leave the staging area and drive to the airport you will get a ride on the way. If it's a short trip..you can head back to airport and they put you in front of the line. That's for Lyft I don't know about uber.

 

[New2This]

Whenever I'm at SFO or the Oakland Airport, I always get the message to drive to the airport for a ride from Lyft after I'm really close to the top of the queue. I was wondering, is the queue still moving while this message is up? I usually wait on Lyft and get a request for Uber, so I can tell what type of ride I will get matched with (Don't want to lose my spot & get nickel and dimed with Shared/Pool rides and it's dangerous+inconvenient for pax).

I get those all the time. I ignore them until I have an actual ping.

Driven over to the airport and didn't get a ping before.

 

[kdyrpr]

Ditto. Just wait. I learned the hard way.

 

[B - uberlyftdriver]

anytime lyft says do something for a ride, do the opposite

your welcome, i saved you some expenses and stress

 

[May H.]

I get those all the time. I ignore them until I have an actual ping.

Driven over to the airport and didn't get a ping before.

So do you just wait in place until you get the actual request? I often start driving and don't get the request and have to go back to the waiting area or circle the airport. Don't like doing this for obvious reasons...

 

[Erin C Banning]

yeah, I just learned the hard way to ignore this message as well -- drove toward the airport as it requested as slowly as I could, when the ping came through it was or an arrivals door I'd already passed in the one-way. fortunately (this time) I hadn't yet pulled out of the arrivals area, so the pax came to meet me, but was totally unnecessary. Would have been an additional few minute wait for them if I'd come directly from the lot, and I would've been available for an uber ping the whole time too. Listening to Lyft is a lose-lose.

 

[New2This]

So do you just wait in place until you get the actual request? I often start driving and don't get the request and have to go back to the waiting area or circle the airport. Don't like doing this for obvious reasons...

Yep. If I'm in the airport lot I am watching Netflix or doing something else besides just waiting for a ping. I also have certain parameters I want for a ping. I always wait until it's a trip I know I want.

 

[TomTheAnt]

Never had a problem with the request. Always received the ping in a minute or so and that’s usually the time it takes me to get myself ready to go and moving. Never had to go back to the staging lot.

I don’t hang out at DFW or DAL lots to begin with, anyway. I just go there if the queue is short enough to be able to get a ride in less than 30 minutes.

 

[oldfart]

My experience is that when I get that message I’m likely to have to circle the airport several times before the ping comes, and if I sit in the lot I never get a ping

Recently it hasn’t Been an issue The Uber queue moves much faster than Lyft’s so I haven’t seen a Lyft passenger at the airport for weeks

 

[Wildgoose]

Look at the sky see if there is any plane landing. It Landed and after 15 mins or so, and you are in front of queue, you would surely get ping while you were heading to pick up point. Or else wait to get ping (it works for small air port.)

 

[May H.]

One time I got that pre-dispatch message—I waited & circled for 45 minutes! I was getting a little paranoid until I noticed other Lyft drivers doing the same. Not fun...

 

[BlueNOX]

It means what it means...leave the staging area and drive to the airport you will get a ride on the way. If it's a short trip..you can head back to airport and they put you in front of the line. That's for Lyft I don't know about uber.

It's Lyft's way of making you ineligible for an Uber ping. To get the Uber ride you have to be in the hold lot. When you pull out you lose you place in Uber's que and are forced to take a Lyft ride. Don't do it.

 

[mbd]

Algo has pre determined runs for drivers, if everything is proceeding
Smoothly... it knows you have been to point a,b,c,d , so if a pax is going to point a,b,c,d you will get that ping
When it says, drive to the airport, it will give you a pax that can go all over... it does not have a pax for you yet, it thinks requests from the pax will be coming shortly...number of pax is also limited... problem arises if no planes arriving for next 15-30 min, then you will be nascar driving around the airport
When you get a straight ping, destination has more fluidity to it.

If not enough drivers in the system , it can send you to the moon

 

[SoFlaDriver]

It's Lyft's way of making you ineligible for an Uber ping. To get the Uber ride you have to be in the hold lot. When you pull out you lose you place in Uber's que and are forced to take a Lyft ride. Don't do it.

That must depend on airport. In Fort Lauderdale the geofenced area that keeps you in queue is huge, and covers the entire airport, not just the holding lot (it actually extends for quite a few blocks adjacent to the airport, complicating things for people ordering rides from those areas.

As far as I know, you stay in the queue and maintain your position as long as remain within the geofenced area, not just the holding lot.

 

[Erin C Banning]

That must depend on airport. In Fort Lauderdale the geofenced area that keeps you in queue is huge, and covers the entire airport, not just the holding lot (it actually extends for quite a few blocks adjacent to the airport, complicating things for people ordering rides from those areas.

As far as I know, you stay in the queue and maintain your position as long as remain within the geofenced area, not just the holding lot.

At Fort Myers airport, the Uber geofenced area is limited to the holding lot + maybe 50' -- so in that case (and any other similar one) the Lyft message (if followed) effectively removes you from the Uber queue. Technically, you might be able to keep your position in the Uber queue if there is no Lyft ping, if you only circle once (as it takes 5 minutes before you lose the uber queue position), but I'd bet it'd be close.

 

[oldfart]

That must depend on airport. In Fort Lauderdale the geofenced area that keeps you in queue is huge, and covers the entire airport, not just the holding lot (it actually extends for quite a few blocks adjacent to the airport, complicating things for people ordering rides from those areas.

As far as I know, you stay in the queue and maintain your position as long as remain within the geofenced area, not just the holding lot.

Here at RSW Lyft has the geo fence pretty tight around the holding lot. Leave the lot and it starts a 5 min countdown (unless you get that message to drive to the terminal). Uber on the other hand seems to work a lot like you describe at Ft Lauderdale. I can go out when Lyft says to drive to the terminal, leaving the Uber app on and return to the lot and retain my place in queue. Or leave the lot to get coffee at the 7/11(on the airport property) and retain my place in line when I return to the lot

I have even left the lot on a lyft ping with the uber app on and got an Uber long ride or xl ping. I'll cancel the lyft and accept the uber

 

[SoFlaDriver]

Well, there's probably a lot of nuance about how this all works and the different approaches the two companies take that I don't know much about, because I don't ever do the holding lot wait, I just notice how I get put into the queue whenever I drop someone off or even when I just drive by the airport on I-95 (which is actually pretty nice since they started with the sticky bonuses down here -- you get whatever bonus they're giving airport drivers without having to even drive into it).

I do notice that Lyft now makes it optional whether or not you want to join the queue, while Uber does it automatically as soon as you cross that geofence. I prefer that actually because, like I said, I'm not really sticking around for a pickup, and Uber's queue keeps you trapped in it (and presumably unable to take any non-airport pickups in the vicinity) until you're 2-3 miles away from the place (or perhaps that's that 5-minute grace period for those who want to pop into a nearby store without losing their queue position). At least with Lyft I can just choose to stay in normal, non-airport mode and maybe pick up another trip nearby. Of course, if I do, then I gotta decide whether it's worth it to potentially lose that sticky bonus because it goes away the first Uber ride I decline or If I go offline.

These little decisions every day can make or break you.

 

[Bubsie]

Yeah its a pain in the ass when I make an Uber airport dropoff and it autoadds me to the airport queue, even when I haven't entered the rideshare staging lot. As I leave the airport I go offline then back on to escape the sadness and break free of the queue.