MOBILE, Ala. - Alabama motorcoach operators, working with limousine and cab companies, have succeeded in blocking the Mobile Regional Airport from expanding its shuttle service.
The Alabama Public Service Commission voted to deny the airport's application to extend its van service from metropolitan Mobile to seven counties surrounding Mobile. Some of proposed locations are more than 100 miles from the airport.
In a 2-to-1 vote, the commission decided the existing service is adequate.
The director of the airport wasn't pleased by the decision and immediately attacked the Public Service Commission, saying the state's regulatory process is broken.
"It's not designed to provide service to the customer," one newspaper quoted airport Director Bay Haas as saying. "It's designed to protect transportation companies from excessive competition."
In Alabama, the state PSC regulates intrastate passenger transportation services. To be granted a license under the 1939 law governing passenger carriers, the airport had to prove the existing services are inadequate to meet reasonable public needs. The airport also had demonstrate it proposed to provide a superior alternative.
It failed to meet those tests.
PSC Commissioner George Wallace Jr., who voted against the airport, issued a statement in response to the carping by Haas: "All of our actions are designed to protect the consumer and, in this instance, give them a choice of transportation options."
Among those opposing the airport were three mobile-based coach companies: Mobile Bay Transportation Inc., Wright Tours Charter Service Inc., and Colonial Trailways, and McIntosh Charters & Tours Inc. of Spanish Fort, Ala.
Margie Wilcox, president of Mobile Bay Transportation, was quoted as say it would be unprecedented for a quasi-governmental agency like as the airport authority to compete against private business.
Travelers using the regional airport have plenty of transportation choices, including the airport shuttle, private shuttles, taxicabs, limousines and coaches for larger groups. Rental cars also are available.
The airport wanted authority to operate its shuttles anywhere in Mobile, Baldwin, Washington, Clarke, Escambia, Conecuh, Monroe and Choctaw counties.
For more than a decade, the airport had contracted exclusively with Mobile Bay Transportation to offer rides to incoming passengers but it ended the arrangement three years ago after complaints that shuttles were not available after all flights.
In 2001, the authority contracted for a time with an Ohio company to provide the shuttle service but that collapsed. After that the airport grew its own three-van shuttle fleet.
"We're just looking for the best way to get the customer's journey completed," Haas was quoted as saying. "All airports our size struggle with this."
The Mobile Regional Airport serves more than 40,000 passengers monthly. Traffic is down roughly 6 percent this year.