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Owner operatorsAnacortes Airport Shuttle partners with owner-operators across Skagit County, Whidbey Island, and Whatcom County to run pre-arranged airport, cruise, and executive transfers. You bring a licensed, insured vehicle and a professional standard of service. We bring booked, prepaid work on fixed fares, scheduled in advance rather than dispatched on demand.
Rideshare pays you to wait. You sit somewhere hoping a ping arrives, accept a fare you cannot see the value of until it is over, and absorb the dead miles yourself. In a rural county ninety miles from the nearest major airport, that model barely works.
Our work looks nothing like that. Every trip is reserved days or weeks ahead at a fixed, prepaid fare. You know the pickup address, the destination, the passenger count, and what the trip pays before you accept it. You plan your week rather than chase it.
Trips are offered ahead of time with full detail. Accept the ones that fit your week and decline the ones that do not, without a rating penalty for saying no.
The customer pays a fixed fare at booking. There is no surge to argue about, no fare adjustment after the fact, and no chasing payment from the passenger.
Anacortes to Sea-Tac is a ninety-mile run, not a four-mile hop. Long, predictable trips on known corridors rather than a string of short fares across town.
You remain an independent contractor operating your own vehicle under your own licensing and insurance. We are a source of booked work, not an employer.
Owner operators
Six steps from application to your first trip. Most of the timeline depends on your paperwork rather than on us.
Complete the form below with your vehicle details, licensing, and availability. It takes a few minutes and gives us most of what we need.
We call you. This is a two-way conversation about the routes, the volume you want, and whether this is a fit for both sides.
Driving record, background check, licensing, commercial insurance certificate, and vehicle registration. Everything below is checked, not assumed.
We look at the vehicle in person. Condition, cleanliness, luggage capacity, and safety equipment all matter to the passengers who ride in it.
Booking system access, our service standards, airport pickup procedures, and how flight tracking and travel-day communication work.
You start receiving trip offers with full detail. Take what fits. Build from there at whatever pace suits your schedule.
These are not negotiable, because every one of them protects the passenger and the reputation we all trade on.
| Class | Passengers | Luggage | Demand |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard sedan | 2 | 2 | Steady — solo and couple travel |
| Premium sedan | 3 | 3 | Corporate and executive work |
| Mini van | 4 | 4 | Strong — family travel |
| SUV | 6 | 6 | Highest — our most requested class |
| Transit van | 10 | 10 | Groups, weddings, corporate teams |
| Sprinter van | 14 | 14 | Cruise groups and large parties |
Washington handles for-hire authority at the business level through the Department of Revenue's Business Licensing Service, and licensed limousine carriers fall under a separate framework. Which one applies depends on how your business is structured. We will walk you through the right route for your situation, and you can check current requirements directly with DOL and DOR.
Not for the vehicle classes above. A commercial driver license with a passenger endorsement applies to vehicles designed to carry 16 or more people including the driver. Our largest vehicle seats 14, so a standard Washington license with the correct business authority covers it.
The arrangement
No ambiguity about who covers what. This is what each side puts in.
Set out your compensation model plainly: the percentage split or flat rate per trip, the settlement schedule (weekly, biweekly), the payment method, and how gratuities are passed through. Owner-operators compare this figure first and vagueness here loses good applicants to competitors who publish a number.
Customer gratuities added at checkout are passed to you in full.
The trips that pay best are the ones nobody else wants. A 3:30 AM pickup in Oak Harbor for a 7:00 AM Sea-Tac departure is a genuinely good fare, and it is also a 2:45 alarm. If early mornings are a dealbreaker, this will not suit you.
The work is seasonal. Summer, holidays, and the Alaska cruise season are busy. February is not. Most of our partners treat this as a substantial part of their income rather than the whole of it, at least in the first year.
You will drive I-5 in the dark and in the rain, and you will occasionally sit at Sea-Tac waiting on a delayed flight. In exchange, the fare was agreed weeks ago, the customer has already paid, and nobody is going to argue with you about the price at the end of it.
Complete as much as you can. If you do not yet have every licence or certificate, apply anyway and tell us where you are — we can point you at the right next step.
An independent contractor. You operate your own vehicle under your own business licence and insurance, set your own availability, and are responsible for your own taxes. We provide booked work, systems, and customer relationships rather than employment.
Yes. This is an owner-operator partnership, so the vehicle is yours. It must meet the standards above and pass our inspection.
Commercial auto liability cover. A personal policy does not cover carrying paying passengers and will typically be voided by a claim arising from for-hire work. If you are not yet commercially insured, apply anyway and we will point you toward brokers who write this cover locally.
Not for the vehicle classes we book. A commercial driver license with a passenger endorsement applies to vehicles designed for 16 or more occupants including the driver, and our largest vehicle seats 14.
It depends on your vehicle class, your availability, and the season. Drivers who cover pre-dawn departures and hold an SUV or van see the most volume. Summer, holidays, and the Alaska cruise season are considerably busier than late winter.
Yes. Trips are offered with full detail in advance and you accept what fits your schedule. There is no penalty for declining. What matters is that once you accept a trip, you complete it.
Yes. You are running your own business and are free to take other work, including rideshare. We ask only that you honour trips you have accepted from us.
Answer plainly: settlement schedule, method, and how gratuities flow through. This is the question every applicant scrolls to find.
Call us immediately. We will reassign the trip to another partner. Communication is the whole thing here — a breakdown we know about two hours ahead is a problem we can solve, and one we learn about at pickup time is not.
Mostly it depends on your paperwork. Where licensing and commercial insurance are already in place, it can be quick. Where you are starting from scratch, allow several weeks for the business licence and insurance to come through.
Enter your pickup, destination, and travel date. You'll see the exact price before you commit to anything.
