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An airline pilot trying to make his flight at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) took an unexpected detour when his Lyft driver kicked him out of the car and left him stranded in a random parking lot last Thursday.
Like many people headed to the airport, the pilot, Darryl, used the ride-sharing app to summon a Lyft car to his hotel and entered LAX as the destination, he told KTLA.
Darryl’s driver arrived and picked him, but then he suddenly was agitated when he realized the destination was LAX. Apparently, the driver had just come from the airport. “He picked me up, I loaded the bag, and we started to leave, and then I guess he looked at — the destination popped up on his phone at that time, and then he got very frustrated,” Darryl, who did not want to share his last name or airline, said. “He did not want to go back to LAX.”
As the ride continued, the driver was bemoaning how little money he was going to make on the trip. He told Darryl that the nearly hour-long ride would only earn him $6. So, instead of taking the pilot all the way to the airport, he decided to ditch the fare and leave Darryl stranded in a Trader Joe’s grocery store parking lot — nearly seven miles away from LAX.
In a video that the pilot recorded, the driver can be heard saying “Sorry, man, but I can’t make $6 an hour,” as he abandons Darryl in the parking lot.
The pilot eventually made it to the airport about 15 minutes late. He said he reached out to Lyft, and the company told him they were taking the matter seriously, and he would never be paired with the driver again but did not tell him if any action would be taken against the driver.
“The driver — I hope he doesn’t work for that company again,” Darryl said. “I couldn’t believe that you would abandon somebody in the parking lot. That’s crazy.”
A study from MIT earlier this year reported that drivers for ride-sharing companies Uber and Lyft make a median wage of $8.55 to $10 per hour, which is below the minimum wage in several states, including California.
Featured image by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images.
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