ST. LOUIS — An online car-sharing service has agreed to a revised deal with 51ºÚÁÏ Lambert International Airport limiting it to using three airport parking lots that aren’t within walking distance of passenger terminals.
The 51ºÚÁÏ Airport Commission last week approved the one-year pact with the online platform, Turo Inc., which takes effect Sept. 1.
An earlier version of the agreement recommended by airport managers last December would have allowed Turo to operate in a garage and lot just outside Lambert’s Terminal 1.
That was opposed by some commission members who said it was unfair to traditional car rental firms that have to take their customers by shuttle buses and vans to their own off-site facilities.
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In June, allies at the Board of Aldermen introduced a proposed ordinance that would bar Turo and similar platforms from using garages and lots within walking distance of Lambert’s terminals.
Among the sponsors was Aldermanic President Megan Green. The bill was requested by the American Car Rental Association, which represents the traditional rental firms such as 51ºÚÁÏ-based Enterprise Mobility.
The agreement approved last week also will give Lambert 10% of Turo’s gross receipts at the airport. An airport spokesman, Roger Lotz, said no estimate has been made yet of how much revenue Lambert might get.
Turo has operated at Lambert at least since 2018 but airport officials have said there had been no way to monitor its activity or get a share of the revenue without a formal concession agreement.
Turo, based in San Francisco, is a “peer-to-peer†online platform through which people can rent vehicles from private owners at various locations, not just airports.
Under the agreement approved last week, people picking up and dropping off vehicles at Lambert will be allowed to do so only at three parking areas west of Terminal 1 — lots B, C and D.
Turo won’t get any reserved spaces in the designated airport lots and standard airport parking fees would apply to the Turo-related vehicles. Turo customers will have to get to the lots using Lambert’s shuttle vans.
Lambert’s director, Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge, had opposed the aldermanic bill but continued to negotiate with Turo.
She said last month that Lambert had told Turo it would seek a cease-and-desist court order aimed at barring the firm from the airport if a revised deal wasn’t worked out.
Turo officials on Tuesday did not comment on the revised agreement. The airport commission OK’d the contract, 14-0, with one member abstaining.
Two others were absent, including Sean Fitzgerald, an Enterprise vice president who at a commission meeting in December had criticized the earlier version of the Turo agreement. That had spurred a Turo official to complain that was a conflict of interest.
An Enterprise spokeswoman later said Fitzgerald as a commissioner had never voted on car rental-related topics and wouldn’t vote on the Turo agreement, either.
The city’s main fiscal body, the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, must also approve the revised agreement.
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