Taxi Driver Online

I am looking for opinions on this matter ...I say opinions as I know there will be many and they will probably differ...

Any of you who works Manchester Airport will no doubt be aware of the issues Taxis and PH have there....
Now, Manchester Hackneys who work at the airport have to go to the ''feeder'' park and enter through a barrier...the barrier is operated using a card system which must have monetary credit loaded in it.
Each time the driver enters the feeder park £1-60 is deducted from it.
The driver remains in the feeder until called upon by the ''marshall'' to go to a terminal chosen by the marshall. There is a huge screen which displays the drivers name, vehicle reg no and which of 3 terminals he needs to go to.
The driver remains there until he gets a fare or is asked by the marshall to move to another terminal.
Again, he remains at that terminal till he gets a fare before exiting the airport.
Now, we have competition from arrow cars who are a private hire co ...who by their own admission are ''partners'' with the airport.
arrow cars vehicles go direct to terminals and are not controlled by any marshall and move as they choose to ...going to whichever terminal they are needed at.
We have a situation on a daily basis where taxi users are waiting on the hackney ranks sometimes for 30 minutes and cabs are not being sent to service them by the marshalls...
On terminal 3 the taxi rank is on open ground and there is no shelter...many times they wait in rain,sleet and snow and freezing temperatures....
Hackney drivers are kept in the dark and held in the feeder park in what appears to be a deliberate act to force the taxi users to us the ph service operated by the airport partners...

Now, the question is...are the airport in breach of competition rules/laws ?
Are they in breach of the human rights laws ...by stopping the hackney drivers form working thereby stopping them from earning a living ?

The consumer should have the right to choose but I'm not sure about the human rights aspect

I think the answer might be to get a documentary made using secret filming to publicly expose the airport

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Taxis Are Public Transport too

Join the campaign to get April fools jokes banned for 364 days a year !

Can't see any human rights aspect.

However, the airports have to abide by competition law, and as far as I can make out that's overseen by the CAA.

What's going on is obviously detrimental to consumers, and while there might be good reasons for giving preference to Arrow Cars, if hacks are deliberately being kept from servicing the ranks while passengers are waiting then obviously that's a nonsense.

Factors that could be considered include whether the policy is deliberate, or whether marshalls just incompetent or have other duties that prevent them efficiently organising the hacks.

Is the management at the airport aware of what's going on?

Considering all that's being happening at the airport over the years the unions and hackney associations must have a handle on what's going on?

Don't know if you've seen this, but might be worth a read - it's a CAA review on "market conditions for surface access to airports", which deals with the kind of issues you raise (although not in any great detail).

https://www.caa.co.uk/Commercial-indust ... -airports/

It's quite a long document and deals with issues relating to taxis/PH, as well as buses, trains, car parking etc. For example, there's a brief mention of Addison Lee's exclusive PH rank at Luton, and mention of complaints that have been made.

But you can use the search function to find references to taxis, private hire, minicabs, hackneys etc, so no need to read the full document to find the most relevant parts. (Unfortunately the document is inconsistent with the terms it uses, so worth searching for all of taxis, private hire, minicabs, hackney.)

Of course, the whole picture at the airport will be very complicated, so might be a good idea to talk to the airport management/unions etc or maybe try to generate some press interest before going to the CAA.

And problem with kicking up a stink about things like this is that it can all backfire and you end up in a worse position than when you started...

Why not have a demo, your free to bring the airport to a standstill,just block the roads in and out, until the barrier is removed and your free to drive straight in and pick up.

Yep, that could get all hackneys banned from the airport private land.

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Grandad,
To support my charity text MAYORWALK to 70085 to donate £5

I can't comment much on the Hack v Arrow Cars debate except to say there's probably some big fees of backhanders being charged because as far as corporate greed goes Manchester airport must be right up there. And the traffic controllers are pretty aggressive too.

Simple answer is no.

At Gatwick the 'taxis' are 100% PH, no taxi rank, no feeder rank.

The only way to sort this is for all the hacks in your area, including any large hack firms, to outbid the PH firm.

Money is all the airport are interested in.

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IDFIMH

All ranks should have free and open access. More fool you for paying the fees. Why should you have to pay to take the airports customers home when they've been paid by the Airline?

Problem is that airports know that someone will always pay.

Even if all the hacks blanked it, there would dozens of ph firms lined up to replace them.

Good example was mentioned above re Addison Lee at Luton.

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IDFIMH