Taxi Driver Online

Birmingham Airport delays: Taxi driver is hit by fine as he waited to pick up passengers

A taxi driver who was at Birmingham Airport during Sunday's Monarch fiasco has been left out of pocket by a £53 parking bill because of the delays.

A 'system failure' caused delays to 18 of the airline's flights, with hundreds of passengers finding themselves waiting around at check-in desks and baggage carousels.

Flights to Lisbon, Larnaca and Nice were among those affected, as well as the inbound flight from Malaga.

Muhammad Nasim, from Tettenhall, was waiting to pick up passengers at the airport, and left his taxi in the short stay car park.

He parked up at 4.50pm, 40 minutes after his passengers' scheduled flight was due to arrive, but due to delays, he didn't get back to the vehicle with his customers until 5.50pm.

Short stay parking at the airport starts from £1 for ten minutes but rises to £7 for 20 minutes and an additional £5 for every five minutes thereafter.

His fare for the pick up was £40, so he ended up losing out on £13 plus petrol.

Mr Nasim said: "It's unacceptable, it just isn't good enough. I've been trying to get a refund but no-one will speak to me.

"The airport have told me to get in touch with NCP because apparently it isn't their problem. I've spoken to NCP who said they are going to get back to me, but not to expect any refund.

"I'm not the only person it happened to. I saw one old guy who was almost in tears. He had a bill for £80. People haven't got the money to just pay all that. There was probably people who were putting it on credit cards.

"I think it's very harsh in the circumstances to charge people that kind of money, it's not our fault.

"I think they should put a number out that people can call to claim their money back. It isn't right for them to keep that money."

Birmingham Airport confirmed there was a ground staff issue that caused the delay on the day and Monarch apologised to customers.

A Monarch spokesman said: “Monarch is extremely sorry for the delays to flights in and out of Birmingham Airport. These have been caused by a systems issue experienced by Monarch’s handling agent. This has now been resolved.”

“We would like to apologise to customers for the inconvenience.”

The latest incident comes after major problems on the last Bank Holiday weekend in August where hundreds faced massive baggage delays and were forced to wait for hours.

The airport said that parking is run by NCP, who have yet to respond to Express & Star's request for a comment.

Read more at http://www.expressandstar.com/news/loca ... Tr4887W.99

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

Don't drivers and passengers communicate with each other?

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Grandad,

Charge the punter, and let them claim it back simple

Whose idea was it to call the car park charge a "fine"?

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Grandad,

Should have just parked for 10 minutes look to see if fare was there,if not drive around park up a gain and just keep repeating until fare is there.Maximum for 1 hour =£6.

My thoughts too.

Car park 2 £4.70 1 hour, don't waste fuel.

If you use the airport regularly, you can get a carpark permit for the multistorey. You then get up to 3 hours for £1.70

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Grandad,

Result for a disorganised individual he gets fooked his fault no sympathy from me

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All posts by this contributor are made in a strictly personal capacity

I AM PROUD TO BE A CITIZEN NOBODY'S SUBJECT http://www.republic.org.u

F88K EM ALL WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND

BOOZE BOOZE BOOZE

Birmingham just elbow one of Ufails out of a space at the International station short stay and nip up to the station concourse where there is a screen listing arrivals don't go on car park till you need to

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

In this case the plane had been on the ground for 40 minutes. The delay was in baggage. The screen probably wouldn't have helped.

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Grandad,

The screen would have said "landed" wouldn't it?

The plane had landed. The driver knew it had landed and he also knew how long it usually takes for passengers to get their bags. the delay was in the baggage hall.

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Grandad,

They tried to sting me at East Mids a few months ago, Ryanair had landed, passenger said, "we are just getting off the plane." I went into the car park because he didn't have any luggage so it meant he was straight out. They turned up 35 minutes later. On exiting the car park it said £33.

We always wait until the customer has cleared passport control and got their bags.

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Grandad,