{"id":27758,"date":"2025-05-14T09:00:26","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T09:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=27758"},"modified":"2025-05-14T09:30:18","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T09:30:18","slug":"at-lax-uber-drivers-wait-and-wait-and-wait","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=27758","title":{"rendered":"At LAX, Uber Drivers Wait. And Wait. And Wait."},"content":{"rendered":"
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At Los Angeles International Airport, drivers spend hours in a \u201cholding pen\u201d waiting to be matched with passengers.<\/div>\n

One of the busiest airports in the world has become a difficult place for gig workers to earn a living.<\/p>\n

Drivers complain that the job is not nearly as profitable as it once was.<\/p>\n

Passengers must walk or take a shuttle from their terminal to the ride-hailing pickup spot about 20 minutes away.<\/p>\n

While waiting for their rides, many drivers sit in the back of their trunks or nap in their cars.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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At LAX Airport, Uber Drivers Wait. And Wait. And Wait.<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n
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Before the sun could rise over Los Angeles International Airport on a recent Tuesday, hundreds of Uber and Lyft drivers had formed a queue nearby, stretching around the block. It was 5 a.m., and the waiting game was about to begin.<\/p>\n

In a few minutes, the line of cars would file into a fenced-off parking lot, a mile from the arrival terminals. It is known officially as the Transportation Network Company Staging Area, but drivers call it the \u201cpen,\u201d where they wait to be matched with passengers getting off flights.<\/p>\n

The spot used to be a prime place to catch rides and earn decent money. But these days, there seem to be few rides to go around. Veronica Hernandez, 50, parked her white Chevy Malibu at 5:26 a.m. and opened the Lyft app to check her place in the queue: 156th. It would be an hour and a half before her first ride of the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have good days and bad days,\u201d Ms. Hernandez said, swiping through a screen showing her daily earnings on the app that week: $205, $245, $179. \u201cHopefully it\u2019s a good day.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Like ride-hailing drivers across the country, Ms. Hernandez has seen her pay decline in recent years, even as the demand for her work feels greater than ever. And with the cost of gas and car insurance rising, the already slim margins of gig work are becoming less workable by the day, she said. No place is more emblematic of these problems than LAX, one of the busiest airports in the world but one of the most difficult places for gig workers to earn a living.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt used to be a real way to earn money,\u201d Ms. Hernandez said. \u201cNow you can barely survive on it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Veronica Hernandez, a ride-hailing driver, has been struggling to make ends meet. \u201cYou have good days and bad days.\u201d<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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The offsite ride-hailing holding pen for Los Angeles International Airport.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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At Los Angeles International Airport, drivers spend hours in a \u201cholding pen\u201d waiting to be matched with passengers.One of the busiest airports in the world has become a difficult place for gig workers to earn a living.Drivers complain that the job is not nearly as profitable as it once was.Passengers must walk or take a shuttle from their terminal to the ride-hailing pickup spot about 20 minutes away.While waiting for their rides, many drivers sit in the back of their trunks or nap in their cars.At LAX Airport, Uber Drivers Wait. And Wait. And Wait.Before the sun could rise over Los Angeles International Airport on a recent Tuesday, hundreds of Uber and Lyft drivers had formed a queue nearby, stretching around the block. It was 5 a.m., and the waiting game was about to begin.In a few minutes, the line of cars would file into a fenced-off parking lot, a mile from the arrival terminals. It is known officially as the Transportation Network Company Staging Area, but drivers call it the \u201cpen,\u201d where they wait to be matched with passengers getting off flights.The spot used to be a prime place to catch rides and earn decent money. But these days, there seem to be few rides to go around. Veronica Hernandez, 50, parked her white Chevy Malibu at 5:26 a.m. and opened the Lyft app to check her place in the queue: 156th. It would be an hour and a half before her first ride of the day.\u201cYou have good days and bad days,\u201d Ms. Hernandez said, swiping through a screen showing her daily earnings on the app that week: $205, $245, $179. \u201cHopefully it\u2019s a good day.\u201dLike ride-hailing drivers across the country, Ms. Hernandez has seen her pay decline in recent years, even as the demand for her work feels greater than ever. And with the cost of gas and car insurance rising, the already slim margins of gig work are becoming less workable by the day, she said. No place is more emblematic of these problems than LAX, one of the busiest airports in the world but one of the most difficult places for gig workers to earn a living.\u201cIt used to be a real way to earn money,\u201d Ms. Hernandez said. \u201cNow you can barely survive on it.\u201dVeronica Hernandez, a ride-hailing driver, has been struggling to make ends meet. \u201cYou have good days and bad days.\u201dThe offsite ride-hailing holding pen for Los Angeles International Airport.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27760,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27758"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27766,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27758\/revisions\/27766"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}