Port Authority vows crackdown on ride hustling at airports

In December, a tourist couple from Japan landed at Kennedy Airport and were ushered into a car by a woman pretending to work at Kennedy. Arriving at their destination, the driver demanded $500 cash and when they refused to pay, took them to Flushing Meadow Park and threatened them, according to the Port Authority.

Such cases of ride "hustling" by illegitimate operators at regional airports are not new, but Kathryn Garcia, the Port Authority’s recently appointed executive director, vowed to crack down on them.

"We believe that this illegal activity is driven overwhelmingly by a cohort of repeat offenders, with the worst coming to our airports every single day, despite the constant efforts of the Port Authority Police Department," Garcia said at a press event Tuesday. She said the top 50 hustlers accounted for 22% of summonses at Kennedy since last year.

With just days before the kickoff of the weekslong World Cup, which is expected to draw more than a million soccer fans to the metro area, Garcia announced a 10-year, $100 million initiative to crack down on taxi hustling. The authority will coordinate with the Queens district attorney, the Department of Motor Vehicles and the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission to target drivers who solicit rides without valid TLC plates or taxi medallions.

Queens Borough President Donovan Richards said "not all, but at least some of these hustlers are scammers who charge exorbitant fees."

The initiative includes in-flight announcements, terminal signage in multiple languages and a social media campaign targeting tourists. A press event Tuesday at a Kennedy baggage claims area was interrupted several times by one such message, recorded in Spanish and English.

There will also be greater enforcement and stricter punishments for hustlers, Garcia said.

A conviction for hustling rides at an airport previously added no points to one’s license, but now it will add five points. Eleven points in 24 months leads to an automatic license suspension, and hustling summonses will now go through an administrative court that will speed up prosecutions, Garcia added.

In addition, the Port Authority is adding a $594 fee on top of other fees when a vehicle is towed for "hustling and related activity," she said.

The idea is "it's going to cost [hustlers] more money to come to JFK" than they make operating illegally, said Richard Bellucci, the chief of police operations.

Besides overcharging and sometimes endangering travelers, hustlers hurt legitimate drivers who maintain proper insurance and registrations, said Richard Chow, a yellow cab driver.

"I myself pay $4,000 in expenses. Some of my friends with higher medallion loans pay $5,000 every month," he said. "Many times hustlers, they are aggressive with us as they see us as their competition, but the fact is the hustler is taking our work and insulting our profession."

Port Authority and the Taxi and Limousine Commission police together issued around seven or eight tickets per day for "unlawful solicitation of ground transportation at an airport" in the first four months of this year — up from fewer than five in the same period last year. The TLC also issues tickets for unlicensed taxi operation under a city law; it has averaged around 13 of these tickets daily at the city's two airports in the first five months of this year, up from around seven last year. 

Bhairavi Desai, of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, said she hopes the initiative will lead to an increase in the number of summonses — especially if prosecutions are sped up by routing them through the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings.

"I think some of their enforcement dropped because [officers] didn't see it as being fruitful because it would fall flat in the courts," she said. But the new changes could "re-encourage enforcement."

"On top of that, if they're adding enforcement officers, especially uniformed presence at each of the terminals, we think ultimately that'll be the main deterrent," she added.

Garcia acknowledged the problem has been around for decades.

It "is vast and persistent, and I'll admit that it sometimes feels like we're playing the game of whack-a-mole," she said. "We have not had the deterrent that we needed, and that's what this is about."