News and notes from around the interweb:
- LAX already has one of the worst rideshare experiences in the country, with a miserable bus to the rideshare lot. Now they want to make it significantly more expensive, too. And since it’s Los Angeles, naturally they approved the fee hike unanimously.
Eventually the way to avoid the Central Terminal premium fee will be to take the train that eventually opens maybe next year. Also, rideshare will have to limit the percentage of passengers that et dropped off at the Central Terminal – so if this new fee along doesn’t do it, this is a stealth requirement to raise fares too. They have to pay for exorbitant construction costs somehow.
In a unanimous vote, the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners agreed to increase the $4 fee to $6 for all companies providing passenger pick-ups and drop-offs at the airport, either within the terminal area or at the LAX-It lot.
That fee is expected to jump to $12 for pickups or drop-offs within the central terminal area.
…The board on Tuesday also unanimously approved a separate proposal to require taxi and ride-hailing services to limit the percentage of passengers they pick up and drop off within the central terminal area.
LAX is apparently doing everyone a favor by doubling the fee for all Ubers, Lyfts, taxis, and limos in an attempt to ease traffic into the airport.
Officials claim the rate increase will not be passed on to the drivers or consumers. Meaning the officials have never taken an… pic.twitter.com/qPqeS9JeGS
— Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) March 11, 2026
- Southwest crews win exclusion of other employees from jump seat access. Those other employees are very unhappy, since it reduces their chances to commute on largely full flights.
one person opines:
"Non crew lose huge benefit of 4th jumpseat (and 5th 6th on 800s). Jump seats for crews only. Sounds like it might be a negotiating tactic to get crew to move bags out of the bins above extended legroom (premium) seats"No idea, not too familiar with it all
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) March 10, 2026
- Hyatt Regency Hill Country completes $100 million renovation I like the property, but it was certainly tired. It’s a short drive for me to San Antonio so I look forward to seeing it.
- Hilton devalued Honors again and they did it silently, probably attracting less attention because while many hotels now cost more points they didn’t increase the maximum number of points any hotel can cost. That makes it harder to get a sense of how bad things are.
This isn’t getting a standalone post because honestly I just see less and less value in Honors overall so it’s tough to get too excised about it, even though objectively I probably should. (HT: Doctor of Credit)
- Back around 2002 you could Priceline the Grand Hyatt San Francisco ~ $30/night and Priceline stays counted towards status. You’d earn Hyatt Diamond and have club lounge access as well. FlyerTal member CalItalian actually did live there, if I recall correctly, Pricelining 30 days at a time.
For $3k/mo, you could live at the Courtyard Inn by Marriott at the Cal Ripkin Stadium in Aberdeen, MD, and enjoy maid service, continental breakfast, free tapas Thurs-Sun, gym, and watch free youth travel baseball games every night.
But you'd rather buy a house or whatever. pic.twitter.com/19JOgNc6aN
— Nicholas Carrigg (@nicholascarrigg) March 9, 2026
- IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers Resigns Amid Flight Chaos
The people in California have clearly voted for this. How anyone could see anything redeemable about Newsom is beyond me.
The people mover train into the horseshoe at LAX is the real scandal here. Wildly out of control cost and it still doesn’t operate. LA pols and bureaucrats are completely corrupt and/or incompetent. At least the corrupt ones do their jobs.
@George Nathan Romey, @Joseph – 100% agree with both comments. @1990 will make some comment about workers and livable wages, blah blah. This same council will vote for reduced fares for the poor or some other garbage. This ultimately hurts the working class who will continue to flee Commiefornia.
The Democratic Supermajoity in California can’t build any train to save their life. LAX, my home airport, is an embarrassment. We pay more taxes and fees than any other city/county/state and get nothing in return. Just fraud and grift.
The cost and delays of the train at LAX are truly insane, but the fee hike is not. It does not go into effect until the train begins operating. At that point, you can take a train that operates every 2 minutes to/from the primary rideshare pickup point, so charging extra once they’ve removed the sh*ttle is punitive only to those who can’t spare a few extra minutes to ride it. The fee is commensurate with other markets and promotes less traffic in the congested horseshoe – and if you’ve ever spent 20 minutes trying to get to your terminal from the airport entrance you’ll know why that’s a good thing. So yeah, as someone who lives in LA and will be subject to these fees, I support it, even though the path to get here was absurd.
I thought they were claiming the LAX People Mover will be ready for the World Cup.
@Darin, that’s assuming the train even operates, ever.
To @Mark’s point, the people mover is now almost $1 Billion over budget, and has been delayed yet again to late 2026 – so no World Cup. If I had to wager, it would be lucky to have it operational by the Summer Olympics, if that even happens. There is so much waste, fraud, and abuse going on with our tax dollars. It’s nuts. Then people keep voting for the party that enables it.
The “bus to the rideshare lot” is nothing new in airports with major ongoing construction (see JFK). There are often ways around these shuttle buses (at least in NYC, you can take the AirTrain to T8 for taxi/rideshare, or a different bus to Lefferts A train, then $3 for the Subway), and for LAX, I’ve avoided the LAX-it shuttle by taking UberBlack/LyftLux (but it is more expensive).
@Michael Mainello — It’s a California-story, so, inevitably right-wingers, like yourself and @George Romey, are gonna do a ‘TDS’-equivalent freak-out against it. As for the specific issue, sure, I do care (as should we all) about the affected consumers, here, and, yes, also workers, whether the rideshare drivers, at the airport, and those completing the construction. Hope there can be an affordable, efficient outcome here, but it will likely take more time. (Like, JFK may take until 2030.)
@George Nathan Rome. Not to get into a debate but can you briefly explain how Governor Newsom is in anyway responsible for the local construction project at LAX?
@jsm — (whispering: this is not a very serious place, nor is George, so understand that he’s got Fox on 24/7 full-volume, and it’s really hard for him to appreciate nuance… anyway, don’t worry bout’t.)