If you're looking for a ride home from Logan International Airport, it may cost you more than you're expecting.
Erin Devost couldn't believe it. She had just landed at Logan Sunday evening and was just looking for a way to get home.
"Hopped on my phone to catch an Uber, and I noticed the surge was huge," Devost said.
By the time Devost got off her flight from Washington, D.C.,she noticed the line for taxis was very long.
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"Just wanted a super quick ride home," she said.
Devost got home pretty fast -- the cost, though, was sky-high. Devost paid $150 for the ride after tip.
"It cost me just as much as my flight round-trip just to get home 20 minutes to Quincy," she said.
Maryna Hoskine waited in that taxi line for more than an hour late Sunday night.
"We checked Uber as soon as we landed, and it was like $100 then," she said. "Everyone just looked miserable, like, 'Get me out of here, Logan!'"
Back in mid-June, Gov. Charlie Baker ended the COVID-19 emergency order. As part of that, rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft were allowed to start instituting surge pricing again. At the time, Uber said surge pricing would give drivers an incentive to start driving again.
"Sunday nights at the airport always busy," a rideshare driver, who didn't want to give her name in fear of losing her job, told NBC10 Boston. "I had someone pay $65 for a 10-minute ride."
The driver estimates that while Hoskine and others were in line on Sunday night, she was banking nearly $100 an hour driving to and from the airport.
"I am making a killing, don't get me wrong, but I wish they wouldn't raise the prices so high that people are miserable and they don't want to take the service because it doesn't make sense financially," she said.
For these travelers, compounding things is the MBTA's schedule, with the last train of the night often leaving before all flights land at Logan.
NBC10 Boston reached out to Uber and Lyft for comment. Lyft did not get back to us, but Uber said it warned that something like this may happen in the short term.
"With vaccination rates up, workers and riders in Massachusetts are increasingly using the Uber app to get around," the company said in a statement. "We are working hard to get more drivers back on the road, including by notifying all drivers about the lifting of the surge pricing ban and boosting driver earnings across the state."
Devost now says she will have to budget for her ride home next time she travels.
"I would have to take an earlier flight home, which, unfortunately, cuts my trip even shorter, right?" She said. "Wanted to travel during the summer, knowing how the prices are now, I need to add that into my travel budget, an unexpected expense."
