High gas prices are just another hit for folks in the business of travel.
Ali Abdulhak, of Berlin, has been driving for Uber for three years. On Wednesday, he was one of many rideshare drivers NBC Connecticut caught up with in the cell phone lot at Bradley International Airport.
Abdulhak says the prices at the pump are punishing his profits since Uber hasn’t raised prices for its customers.
“I get mad because when I see the price, every day different price, going up,” Abdulhak said. “It’s too high for us.”
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The owner of Bradley Taxi and Limo doesn’t want to raise prices for customers although they’re impacting his business.
“It’s very hard to deal with this situation because we cannot raise the price for clients or customers or students. It’s not fair,” Hany Hammad said.
While leisure travel has rebounded since the start of the pandemic, corporate travel has not.
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So the high gas prices are just another hit for companies in the business of shuttling people.
Right now, Park ‘N Fly in Suffield hasn’t raised prices.
“We are looking weekly at each one of our lot locations, evaluating the situation and will obviously have to make changes if things continue to go higher. We’re going to have to reflect that into the prices,” said Anne Edwards, VP of Marketing for Park ‘N Fly.
As for Abdulhak, he was on his third hour waiting for any work when we spoke to him.
He didn’t want to waste cash driving his car around to find business.
“I think to quit too. Find different job,” he said.
Uber and Lyft both say they’re monitoring the situation and have programs in place so drivers can save at the pump.
Uber released a statement to NBC Connecticut:
“We know higher prices at the pump can be a challenge, which is why we recently launched a new feature that helps drivers save up to 25¢ per gallon through cash back with GetUpSide. Our platform only works if it works for drivers, so we’ll continue to monitor gas prices and listen to drivers over the coming weeks.”
Lyft also released a statement:
"We care deeply about the driver experience and we’ve taken concrete steps to help given rising gas prices. Our investments in programs like our GetUpside partnership and the Lyft Direct cash back debit card are designed to directly save drivers money at the pump. We’ll continue to explore other ways to help the driver community."
