How to price airport transfers: base fares, distance bands and minimum fares
Airport work is the backbone of most chauffeur businesses, and the easiest place to lose money on badly set prices. A clear way to build a fare that holds up.
Airport transfers are predictable work: known routes, known times and clients who would rather pay for certainty than wait in a taxi queue. But the pricing has more moving parts than it seems, and a fare that looks fine on a 40 km run can lose money on a 6 km one.
Here's a structure that works for most operators.
The building blocks of a transfer fare
Base fare. A fixed amount for every booking, covering the cost of getting a car and driver moving at all: dead mileage, parking, the time to prepare. Many operators set this between 10 and 20 percent of their typical fare.
Distance rate. A price per kilometre or mile, applied to the route distance. This is what makes long trips pay.
Minimum fare. The least you will accept for any trip. It protects you on short runs where the base plus distance would come to less than the job is worth.
A simple fare is then: base fare + (distance × rate), raised to the minimum fare if it comes in below it.
A worked example
Say your executive sedan runs at a base of $15, $2.40 per km and a $55 minimum.
- Hotel to airport, 8 km: 15 + (8 × 2.40) = $34.20, so the $55 minimum applies.
- Airport to downtown, 28 km: 15 + (28 × 2.40) = $82.20.
- Airport to a town 90 km away: 15 + (90 × 2.40) = $231.
That last price might be too high to win the job. That's where distance bands come in.
Distance bands: cheaper per kilometre as trips get longer
Long trips cost less per kilometre to run: highway driving, one pickup, one drop-off. Distance bands let your rate step down as the distance grows, for example:
| Distance | Rate per km |
|---|---|
| 0–20 km | $2.60 |
| 20–60 km | $2.10 |
| 60 km and over | $1.70 |
Bands keep short trips profitable and long trips competitive, without maintaining a separate price for every destination. In Viadence you can set bands per vehicle class and service.
Price each vehicle class on its own
An SUV or a van costs more to run than a sedan, and clients expect to pay more for it. Set rates per vehicle class rather than adding a flat percentage. The gap between classes rarely scales evenly: a van's minimum fare may need to be much higher than a sedan's, while the per-km difference is smaller.
The extras that should never be free
- Waiting time. Flights land late and clients get stuck at baggage claim. Include a free waiting period (45 to 60 minutes after landing is common for arrivals) and charge per minute beyond it.
- Extra stops. A per-stop fee covers the detour and the time.
- Child and booster seats. Charge per seat. It covers the equipment and the time to fit it.
- Return trips. A small round-trip discount is a good way to win both legs.
Plan for when demand peaks
Late nights, holidays and big events change what a transfer is worth. Rather than editing prices by hand, use rules: a percentage surcharge for certain days and hours, holiday dates, or an automatic surcharge when your diary fills up. We cover this in rush hour and dynamic pricing for transfer companies.
Check your prices against real jobs
Before going live, take your last 20 airport jobs and run them through the new rules. Compare the result with what you actually charged. If short trips come out low, raise the minimum fare. If long trips come out high, add or adjust a distance band. It takes an hour and saves months of guesswork.
When your rules are right, every quote is instant, consistent and profitable, and that's what lets you put a booking page in front of clients with confidence. See current plans or follow a booking from quote to payout.
Cover photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash.