Airport transfer or ride-sharing app? For a trip into town at two in the afternoon, with one cabin bag, the app is a good tool. We say that to clients and it costs us nothing, because the difference between the two doesn’t appear at two in the afternoon.
It appears at 05:10, and it appears when the flight is two hours late.
Who is driving, and since when
With an app, the car is found when you ask for it. Usually that works. On a rainy Monday at half past five, sometimes it doesn’t, and the morning you have a nine o’clock meeting is not the morning to find out.
A private airport transfer in Bucharest is assigned the day before. The driver has the flight number, the address and the schedule before he goes to sleep.
Curbside, or inside arrivals
An app picks you up at the kerb, which means you come out first and then work out where to stand. Our driver waits inside, on the left-hand side of the arrivals hall, in front of the Five to Go café, holding a tablet with your name, and messages you on WhatsApp as well.
It sounds like a small difference. It stops being small when there are five people who don’t know each other arriving for the same event.
What a delay costs, and who pays it
With an app, a late flight means ordering again on landing, at whatever the price is at that hour. We watch the flight: if it lands forty minutes early, the driver is already there, and that waiting is ours. If it lands two hours late, the pickup moves. The price agreed in advance stays the price.
Luggage, and the car that fits it
An app shows you a category. It doesn’t ask how many cases you have. Two people with four large suitcases don’t fit in a sedan, whatever the seat count says — that is the difference between one trip and two, and it is better discovered before landing than in the car park.
If what you actually need is a fixed price from the airport into town for two people with hand luggage, a Bucharest airport taxi booking covers it and costs less than a chauffeur at disposal. We’ll tell you that too.
A promise you cannot measure isn’t a promise. It’s an intention.