The Graduate Student Council (GSC) approved $2,706 last night to co-sponsor the ASSU Airport Shuttle service for graduate and undergraduate students who plan to leave campus for Thanksgiving break, which begins next Friday. The money will come from the Graduate Student General Fee Reserve.

Shuttles will be traveling to both San Jose and San Francisco International Airports on Friday , Nov. 16 and Saturday, Nov. 17. The service will run from 5 a.m. until 6 p.m., according to ASSU President Hershey Avula ‘08. The cost of each ticket is $10.

Starting today, shuttle tickets are available to all students on the Stanford Student Enterprises eGroups Web site (http://egroups.stanford.edu), which also provides details including exact shuttle departure times. The ASSU Web site also provides a map with the shuttle routes and pick-up stops across campus, Avula said.

“We encourage students to book their shuttle tickets at least three hours in advance of their flight departure time,” he added.

According to Avula, the architects of the ASSU Airport Shuttle service concept have agreed that in the future this student service should become self-sustainable, rather than relying on continual sourcing from the GSC Fee Reserve.

The reserve account is rarely used, and it reflects unused funds that have been rolled over from the end of each fiscal year.

However, the money requested this year to the council was lower than in the past, said Kristina Keating, a doctoral student in the School of Earth Sciences and co-chair of the GSC. In addition, the ASSU is using part of the money garnered from spring shuttle revenues to help subsidize the service, Avula said.

“And all the money that we get from students who buy these [shuttle] tickets is going to come back to fund the program in the future,” he said.

Whatever disbursed funds remain after the end of the pilot effort will be rolled back into the Graduate Student and Undergraduate General Fee Reserve Account, according to the bill approved last night by the GSC.

Avula said that the total cost of the ASSU Airport Shuttle service pilot is approximately $7,200 and the service capacity should be about 1,000 students.