Reuters
- Lyft says riders can now pre-order a ride as soon as they land at an airport.
- The feature is available at major airports, including California's LAX and Chicago's O'Hare.
- The new feature comes as the ride-hailing app is trying to up its game to compete with Uber.
For travelers that dread waiting and waiting to get picked up from the airport, Lyft says it has an answer: a new feature that lets travelers request a ride as soon as their flight lands.
The announcement comes as Lyft struggles to compete with rival Uber. Lyft's stock price is down more than 55% over the past year, compared to Uber, which has seen an almost 67% increase in its stock price over the same time frame.
The new feature will rely on location awareness and extensive airport knowledge — which may include walk and wait-times — to send a driver at the appropriate time, a spokesperson for Lyft told Insider by email.
"We are solving one of the biggest airport travel pain points for riders," Lyft's CEO David Risher said in a statement.
Lyft noted that its expedited pick-up feature is already available at LAX in Los Angeles and O'Hare and Midway in Chicago. It'll soon be rolled out in airports in Austin, Texas; at JFK in New York; and in Seattle.
Lyft's new feature is part of a wave of changes that Risher has implemented since he took over in April.
Last month, Lyft announced that it would be cutting about 26% of its workforce in an effort to save money that it would reinvest into several areas, including what it said would be faster pick-up times.
Other changes the company has made include discontinuing its pooled ride feature, which it pioneered ahead of competitor Uber, according to Bloomberg.
"The problem with shared trips is that they take people out of their way," Risher told Bloomberg on Thursday. "At some point you have to pay attention to what your customers want."
Lyft had been struggling with discontented employees and investors ahead of Risher's appointment.
The company has also been scrambling to compete Uber, to which it ceded market share during the pandemic after being slow to introduce driver-friendly features and bonuses, the Wall Street Journal reported last month.