Taxi Driver Online

Birmingham Airport cuts free parking drop-off time by 10 minutes

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-b ... m-66511186


Taxi driver Dan Batkin said other drivers were also upset at the changes

Halving the free period of time allowed to drop passengers off at Birmingham Airport will cause hassle and cost customers more, a taxi driver says.

From Tuesday, it will cost £3 for those staying longer than 10 minutes, rising to £4 for those staying 15-20 minutes.

But Dan Batkin, who makes between 20 and 30 drops off at the airport each day, said he and other drivers were "up in arms" about the changes.

The airport said it would release more capacity within the car park.

Mr Batkin, from Cannock in Staffordshire, works for Corky's Cars, which operates an airport service.

He said there would be a backlog of traffic as people tried to leave the car park more quickly and bottlenecks at exits, potentially meaning drivers could be charged.

"The [free] 20 minutes was sufficient before," he said.

"There were no queues, but now it's going to be more hassle than it's worth."

He added CCTV meant those dropping passengers off in the wrong areas could be fined.

"Ultimately it'll [the extra costs] be passed on to customers - they're already paying for holiday and a taxi, and now it'll be extra for this.

"There's no seasonal passes available for drivers - we're all just up in arms about it.

"We're taking customers to the airport and I feel like we're being punished for what we do every day."

An airport spokesperson said: "The 10 minutes is designed to allow customers sufficient time to drop off, as the car park is designed for.

"For customers wanting to pick up passengers, we would advise to use Car Park 1."

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IDFIMH

I assume this is the car park on the left as you come in (long stay) the one outside the terminal has always been pay parking anyway.

Not sure that it is that busy as most passengers prefer the closer pay parking in my experience

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

Most people like me use it as a free 20 minute waiting for passengers to get through the airport and then i go down to the pay carpark to actually pick up. The sign at the entrance says no return within an hour so i can't see how anyone can be using it 20-30 times a day.

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Grandad,

But which maybe demonstrates that, just like the recent Edinburgh article, the figures for the parking charges should maybe be taken with a pinch of salt.

But if they're anything like correct, certainly cheap compared to Edinburgh Airport, even after the 'hikes'.

I suspect the 20-30 visits quoted is across the whole fleet of his business so divide that by fleet size and bearing in mind brummie traffic I very much doubt he could do a drop at brumport and then get to another pick up and back in under 2 hours let alone 1.

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

Edders, yes you're probably right and it's a fleet figure rather than what he does personally, assuming it is a daily rather than weekly figure, or whatever.

But reading it literally it makes it sound like he's a grassroots "taxi driver" rather than a proprietor, or whatever, and that he personally does 20-30 drops per day. But pretty sure it's just misleading in some way.

Did a Stanstead job on Monday.

Can't believe I paid £7 for 5 minutes.

Or more to the point the punter did, along with the £5 Dart charge.

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IDFIMH

they seem to be a sizeable operation having more than 1 base of operation he isn't the owner but there's an operations manager called Dan (if it's the same one)

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