Airport Shuttles Try to Get Riders Past the Language Roadblock

The Metro Shuttle van looked like any other cruising around Los Angeles International Airport on the prowl for pickups. It was the driver who was exotic.

To Ethiopian travelers, Demetros Dammenn is a welcome sight. The soft-spoken Addis Ababba native can converse in Amharic, one of the prominent tongues of that desert nation.

Need Polish or German? Dammenn, who attended college in Warsaw, can speak those languages, too. And he is fluent in English as well.

In Southern California, where cultural diversity has become the rule, this polyglot wheelman, a political exile from a harsh authoritarian regime, is no exception.

Dammenn and a growing number of drivers fluent in languages ranging from Amharic to Farsi are working for a handful of newly organized shuttle services in Los Angeles County specifically tailored to assist foreign travelers who do not speak English.

When fellow countrymen enter his van, there is little question that they “are happy to find someone who can speak their language,” Dammenn said.

Amir Ares, whose Apollo shuttle service employs drivers fluent in Farsi, Russian and Armenian, said the market for such services is a testament to Los Angeles’ ethnic diversity and its role as a frequent destination for international travelers.

“This is L.A.,” Ares said. “If you have a driver who can talk these languages, you can provide a better service.”

Beginning about two years ago, the state Public Utilities Commission began documenting what amounts to a curbside Tower of Babel at LAX--hordes of foreign travelers sometimes arriving in mass confusion, unable to communicate their needs to baffled airport personnel and drivers.

In a PUC hearing on Metro Shuttle’s application to begin service, Meshesha Biru, an Ethiopian community activist, testified: “My mother came into the airport . . . (with) a note asking for an Amharic-speaking taxi, and the taxi people read that as Arabic and she got a person she could not communicate with. And it was after a very difficult time that she finally got to come home.”

Biru added: “Everybody tells us different stories on how they get to go to different places that they did not ask for, or (are) taken for a ride.”

Despite opposition from airport authorities and some entrenched shuttle services, the PUC gave its approval to groups of emigres from Iran, Armenia, Korea, Taiwan and Ethiopia to start van services catering to people who cannot speak English.

“We were kind of intrigued by the whole idea,” PUC member Stanley Hulett said. “It provides a real positive experience for some of our foreign visitors.”

Metro Shuttle, one of the latest to begin operating, is unquestionably the most unusual of the lot. It was formed by individuals who had to leave Ethiopia because of political differences with the government in Addis Ababa. In addition to English, all the drivers are fluent in Amharic or Tigregna, Ethiopia’s other main dialect.

“Truly, Los Angeles is cosmopolitan. It is a melting pot,” said Seyoum Gebrou, 49, Metro Shuttle’s founding chairman.

Gebrou drove a cab here for years before joining with other Ethiopian cabdrivers to start Metro Shuttle. Eventually, 14 Ethiopians each put up between $6,000 and $10,000 to place the order for the vans.

They also pooled their considerable educational and organizational resources. Seleshi Telehun, 40, the president, is a political science and economics graduate of Addis Ababba University. He used to work for the Ethiopian Relief and Rehabilitation Commission.

Gebrou, who has a master’s degree from the University of London, said, “We have college graduates and we have the ability to review information, process it and make advantage of it.”

The group needed that sort of savvy to figure out how to overcome the resistance of LAX officials to new shuttle services. Dismayed by unruly curbside contests for passengers, airport officials had imposed a moratorium on new applications for shuttle services last September and testified at PUC hearings, opposing those still in the pipeline.

But Metro Shuttle carefully presented a case to the PUC that it could fill a void in shuttle service.

Witnesses testified that there are 30,000 to 50,000 Ethiopians here, the bulk in Inglewood and the Wilshire and Crenshaw districts. Many of them need drivers fluent in their native languages, the witnesses said.

Similar arguments for Asian and Soviet ethnic communities have been made before the PUC by the San Gabriel Valley Express, Universal Express, Apollo, Seoul Shuttle, Taeguk Shuttle and San Sui Tour and Travel.

Metro Shuttle played another card at its hearing. Clyde Johnson, president of the Black Employees Assn., testified that a black-operated shuttle service would serve black neighborhoods better than other services.

Johnson said it “would be a tremendous boost to have black entrepreneurs involved . . . rather than just as employees. I particularly think that the Ethiopians are uniquely suited to that task in that they are highly educated . . . very independent.”

PUC approval came through in March. By July, Metro Shuttle vans were circling LAX relentlessly.

The group picked up 2,500 passengers in its first 30 days.

“Everything is going according to plan,” Telehun said, reviewing a computer printout in Metro Shuttle’s small suite of offices near LAX.

Except for one thing.

Ethiopians make up only about 1% of the passengers picked up by Metro Shuttle vans.

“The Ethiopians who come don’t know of our existence,” Gebrou said. The firm has yet to implement a marketing plan to seek out Ethiopians customers here and abroad.

Nevertheless, Dammenn, 27, who works 12 to 14 hours a day, six days a week, said he occasionally does pick up Ethiopians, more or less at random.

Apollo also reported that its language skills are not frequently needed.

“OK, let me tell you the truth, (only a) few percentage of customers are Armenian, Russian--15% to 20%,” Ares said.

All of which has led to some grousing by SuperShuttle, the largest shuttle van service, with more than 200 vans.

“If the argument is made that they are trying to serve ethnic markets and they are not serving that market, they may be driving circuits at the airport or hotels,” rather than targeting a specific clientele, said Jim Watson, senior vice president for sales and marketing.

“That is not what they said they would be doing. . . . As additional vans enter into the pool, if they are not going to generate an additional market, they are going to have to live on something else. And that is where the problem comes about.”

But if SuperShuttle is feeling abused, the PUC’s Hulett takes a more tolerant attitude.

“We figured they wouldn’t have enough (ethnic passengers). We knew that they would have to pick up some other business. What they have done is develop service to areas not served by SuperShuttle or some of the other services,” Hulett said.