Ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft are gaining popularity among business travelers, but they still take a back seat to rental cars.

That was the conclusion of a study by Maine-based Certify, a software company for business expense management that looked at 8.5 million expense re- ports filed in the July-September quarter.

Over that period, business travelers used car- rental services 44 percent of the time and ride-hailing services 34 percent, followed by taxis, 22 percent.

Ride hailing has surpassed all other transportation expenses in several cities, including San Francisco, where business travelers used it 85 percent of the time, versus 6 percent for taxis and 12 percent for rental cars, the study found.

Ride hailing is typically less expensive than taking a taxi. The Certify study found that the average travel expense for a taxi ride was $35.28, compared with $27.61 for an Uber ride and $23.94 for Lyft.

Airlines with passenger fees profit more

Bad news for airline passengers who hate to pay bag fees and other charges for extras on a flight: Car- riers that rely heavily on passenger fees are among the world’s most profitable airlines.

Based on operating profit margins, ultralow-fare airlines such as Allegiant (24 percent margin), Spirit (21 percent), Frontier (17 percent) and Ryanair in Eu- rope (20 percent) surpassed the biggest U.S. carriers, including American (15 percent), Delta (14 percent) and United (11 percent) over a 12-month period end- ing in June.

Seth Kaplan, managing partner for the trade publication Airline Weekly, reached these conclusions after crunching the latest financial data. One of the key rea- sons for the healthy profit margins is the move by the airlines to "unbundle" fares to charge separately for food, drinks, entertainment and other extras, he said.

"There is no question that unbundling has been very profitable," Kaplan said. But Kaplan said he doesn’t expect larger airlines to add too many more passenger fees. He noted that US Airways began charging for coffee, water, juice and soft drinks during the economic recession but ended the practice because of complaints from passengers.

"Consumers are willing to accept a lot of things, but they will vote with their wallets," he said.

——

Hugo Martin, Los Angeles Times