SuperShuttle may soon return to Sacramento airport, relaunched under new ownership
SuperShuttle is on its way back, Sacramento, but it might look different when it returns.
The blue vans that for years carried air travelers to and from airports across the U.S. went away after the company ceased operations in late 2019.
But over the past year, SuperShuttle has been rebuilding in a partnership with the owners of zTrip that could see service return to Sacramento International Airport within about two months, the Sacramento Business Journal first reported Saturday.
A private equity firm that purchased SuperShuttle International ended up shutting it down in 2019, executive partner Dave Bird told The Bee by phone Monday morning, but he along with old partners at SuperShuttle and new ones at zTrip decided to revitalize it.
“We bought back the technology and the brand name and the URL code, with the idea that there’s still a lot of value left in that brand,” Bird said.
SuperShuttle had shut down service at Sacramento International Airport in December 2019, citing financial losses, and as apps like Uber and Lyft continued to grow in popularity.
According to social media posts and news releases from the company, SuperShuttle announced its comeback last July at a few of the nation’s biggest airports, such as Dallas/Fort Worth, even as the COVID-19 pandemic had been keeping air travel at historically low levels for months.
SuperShuttle later in 2020 expanded back to a few dozen more markets, including San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Bird confirmed to The Bee that the hope is for SuperShuttle to be back operating in Sacramento within 45 to 60 days in another round of expansion involving about 15 airports, a timeline that would bring it back sometime in June, as he first told the Business Journal.
As he explained, though, “You’re not gonna see the blue and yellow vans,” at least for now.
The company is currently offering an ExecuCar “black car service” option along with its “express” service, which works more like an on-demand taxi service.
Bird told the Business Journal that he wants to bring the blue vans back as an option in the future, once COVID-19 cases decline and air travel is in higher demand.
An important piece of the business model is that the service offers a guaranteed price, with reservations that can be made as long as a year in advance, Bird told The Bee.
“No last-minute surge pricing or those types of things that you typically see with other types of airport transportation these days,” he said.
Another important element, Bird said, is that SuperShuttle contracts “not drivers but (local) companies, that we can go ahead and give our business to.”
Bird said the business model and relaunch have proven successful, with business having essentially quadrupled since early March.
U.S. air travel is rebounding as coronavirus transmission rates decline and vaccine rates improve. Recent numbers from the Transportation Security Administration show there have been more than 10 times as many travelers each day this month compared to the same dates in April 2020, when COVID-19 restrictions were at their tightest nationwide.
Bird said the pandemic, which hit right as SuperShuttle was relaunching, added a hurdle, “but it gave us time to sort of reinvent ourselves, work on some additional technology.”
Some of the cities targeted to join Sacramento in the next round of SuperShuttle expansions include Miami, St. Louis and Long Beach.
The service will be available via website, smartphone app and by phone call once it launches in Sacramento, according to Bird.
