Metro Airport accused of special treatment for students

People who take public transportation to Detroit Metro Airport’s McNamara Terminal must walk hundreds of feet just to get to a door that will take them to the terminal.

But University of Michigan students who use the university’s airBus service, which operates before and after breaks, get much closer access.

Critics of the Wayne County Airport Authority’s decision to move the bus stop for public transit providers to the location farthest from the terminal in the Ground Transportation Center point to that discrepancy as an example of what they say is the authority’s disdain for public transit riders and those with disabilities, a criticism airport spokesman Michael Conway rejects as false.

“When somebody tries to brand us as being insensitive to our customers with disabilities, that’s absolutely not true,” Conway said.

But those critics also point to a series of e-mails in September 2014, before the switch, between Bobby Dishell, a former University of Michigan student body president, and Andrea Fischer Newman, who is both senior vice president of government affairs for Delta and a University of Michigan regent, when Dishell was concerned that airBus would have to use the same spot as AirRide and SMART at the Ground Transportation Center.

The e-mails were provided to the Free Press by attorney Jason Turkish’s firm. Turkish is a Southfield-based attorney involved in litigation accusing the airport of discrimination against the disabled related to the airport's decision to move the public transit stop farther from the McNamara Terminal last year. The airport said it did so because of safety concerns.

Newman, in asking Dishell for an update on the situation, writes that she knows “all those people and perhaps I can help.” In his response, Dishell describes a limited number of spaces for buses in the location and the extra time it would take students to check in.

“On top of that, this requires students to walk in between the wheel wells of buses and motor coaches to board and get off the buses while they also struggle with luggage. In addition, this new location forces students to walk outside for a long stretch of time, and if we had a winter like this past year, could leave students outside in the cold while they try to board a bus home,” Dishell wrote.

Newman did not respond to requests for comment. Dishell said in a phone conversation with the Free Press that Newman was a “huge help” in resolving the situation for airBus.

“This just shows who really calls the shots at Detroit Metro Airport,” Turkish said.

Turkish said the decision to allow airBus to use a closer stop than that for public transit providers means university students get special treatment.

“Elderly disabled people have the long walk, but U-M undergrads (are) dropped near the door,” he said.

Both Conway and Brian Sadek, the airport’s in-house counsel, rejected that claim, with Conway saying the airport only does what makes operational sense and Sadek saying that the airport does not give preferential treatment to one operator over another.

Sadek said airBus stops are handled as a “special event,” just like shuttles that move people heading to and from the North American International Auto Show or large conventions in the area. The airport does not want to add to congestion, so it allows those buses and shuttles to pick up and drop off in an area that normally does not permit that, he said.

“These are discreet special events with large waves of people,” Sadek said.

Contact Eric D. Lawrence: elawrence@freepress.com or on Twitter @_ericdlawrence