Airport-hotel shuttle I would say is customary. But an economy parking shuttle? I don’t really think so. The shuttles at Sky Harbor are refitted buses with a front door and rear door. You can get in and out without even seeing the driver. If they expect passengers to tip, they’ve set it up pretty poorly.
If my bags aren’t being handled by this shuttle driver, then what exactly, am I tipping them for? Not for waiting for me to board and stow my bags, that’s necessary. Not for driving me to the terminal, that’s their entire function, drive the loop. It’s not individual service where they drop me off right at my car, it’s stop to stop, so to me, this would be like tipping the public bus driver.
Why are we now tipping people when no personal service is rendered in any fashion?
I meant it as joke when I mentioned earlier that you should save your tip for the pilot of the plane but it is a good question. Everyone knows that you don’t tip pilots but why? We are supposed to tip the person that drives you in a slow circle around a parking lot but not the one takes you several thousand feet in the air across the country. It is a little strange if you step back and think about it. Some people would say that it is because shuttle bus drivers don’t make much money but I can promise many are making more overall than some pilot’s for regional airlines and they have much less training and responsibility.
It is just one of those things that it doesn’t really make much sense but is is part of American culture.
A dollar per bag if he or she is handling my bag. And they pretty much always are, so a dollar.
Janitors don’t make much money (and face more risk of physical injury on the job than a loop-making shuttle driver who doesn’t help with bags) but we don’t leave a dollar on our desks or the restroom counters in our office buildings, and most places we don’t even do something at the holidays.
You can now customize your order at just about every fast foodery, including McDonald’s, where menus are expanding more and more each year, but there are no communal tip jars there. Somehow making a hot coffee with room for milk at Starbucks is personal service worthy of tip but making a caramel mocha drink at McDonald’s isn’t.
The ever-expansion of who gets tipped and the increasing social pressure involved is ridiculous. But in the case of an airport shuttle driver, there’s another matter at play: they very well may be a quasi-public employee, if they’re employed by whatever public authority runs the airport. If not, they’re employed by a public contractor. As sad as the reliance upon tipping to create a livable wage for waitstaff is, it’s unacceptable, nigh unto unconscionable that users should be required to augment the salary of a public employee or a public contractor.
Hmmm… that might be why the on-airport busses (rental cars and on-airport parking) don’t have the built-in tip jars I described above, but the off-airport parking places universally do have (and by “universally do have” I mean the two that I’ve used).
I’ve never noticed that it was customary to tip that guy, and I tip everyone! Never seen a tip jar, never seen anyone tipping. Most commonly, I ride that bus at Charlotte - if I fly out of Columbia I get a ride.
I had an interesting experience with an airport shuttle last year. It was one of the shuttle express things - a shared van that picks up multiple people before going to the airport. I made my reservation online. I live pretty far north of the airport, so the charge was about 50.00 for a one-way. At the end of the reservation process, the online system suggested an 18% gratuity.
I had planned to tip 5.00 - it was a shared van and I only had 1 bag. I was very annoyed at the suggestion of a pre-paid 18% gratuity. It seems a little ridiculous.
I’ve used the service in question at MKE and don’t tip that particular driver since there is no bag handling involved.
As others have said, it depends on the service. If it’s just a ride from point A to point B, nope, no tip. But I’ve had a shuttle driver that got out of his van, carried my bags to my car (ok. 10 feet), and than pulled out a snow brush and cleaned off my car windows. Yep, he got a good tip.
I’ve never seen anyone tip an airport parking lot shuttle driver. (This wouldn’t be an issue for non-Americans, as they wouldn’t have cars to park at long term airport parking lots.) I’ve used the shuttles at Dulles, BWI, and National pretty regularly. The drivers never help out with bags or even interact with the customers in any way, as far as I can tell - even the stop announcements are automated. I just can’t imagine someone tipping for that service.
But I put this driver in the same category as the taxi driver. Without touching the luggage he’s doing the exact same thing the cabbie is doing, and he probably makes a lot less total take home pay.
Ditto, right down to the airports I frequent.
People visiting the US from out of country wouldn’t be using long-term airport parking in the US. What’s confusing about that?