AIRPORT AILMENTS GATWICK CABBIES CALL FOR UBER BAN AT THE AIRPORT AS LIVELIHOODS THREATENED
Letters are to be sent to TfL, the DfT and Gatwick Airport Ltd about Uber drivers ‘touting for business’ at the airport after the situation was raised at Crawley BC’s licens- ing committee meeting on 18 June. Officers are already carrying out an investigation into claims licensing rules are being breached to the detriment of local drivers. But committee members voted unanimously to take further steps. Chairman Imran Ashraf agreed to write to Gatwick Airport asking it to engage with licensing officers to ensure provision for licensed vehicles at the airport is compliant with licensing law. He will also ask TfL to carry out frequent enforcement visits and/or authorise the council’s licensing officers to act on their behalf. And he will write to DfT expressing
concern the current licensing regime makes it difficult to address breaches, and ask for the law to be looked at again. Gatwick taxi drivers gathered in numbers outside the town hall before some moved inside to watch the meeting. Safety and the financial cost of losing business to Uber were their top concerns. Don Barnes, Unite branch secret- ary, who works for Airport Cars, said Uber cars were parking up in the Authorised Vehicle Area,
ABERDEEN AIRPORT CABBIES REFUSE TO WORK OVER AIRPORT CHARGE
Dozens of cabbies at Aberdeen International Airport refused to work in protest over a new £7 charge for customers, after talks over changes broke down. The drivers previously paid £200 a week to gain access to the airport rank, with a £5 surcharge for all customers. However this has been swapped to a £7 charge added to the meter which can be passed on to passengers. The dispute involves about 60 taxi drivers, and many held a protest near the airport on Monday 3 June. Driver Gus McDonald said: “We think it’s extortionate. We feel like
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the airport are looking at the taxi drivers as debt collectors.” The drivers are also unhappy about changes to their working patterns. “We want to see the surcharge scrapped,” added Mr McDonald. “We’re happy to pay the airport for the privilege of picking up. If we don’t make a stand now, we don’t know where it will go from here.” The Unite union represents around 45 drivers, and said they will refuse to work for “as long as it takes”. The airport said: “We have plans in place to minimise the impact on customers and appreciate their patience over longer wait times.”
coming and going at the rate of one a minute while the drivers licensed for the airport were ‘sitting in the crew room for two hours before they get a job’. Calling for Uber to be geo-fenced from both Gatwick and Crawley, he said: “Gatwick is not in London – Gatwick is in Sussex. Uber is not part of Sussex – Uber should be removed. They are breaking law, they must be held accountable.” Nick Venes, a licensed driver and Unite representative, speaking for 315 drivers at Gatwick, called for protection from the council as licensing authority. He said: “We pay nearly half a million pounds to be not protected – we are not protected at all. Why is that? Are we just a cash cow? “We need help. We need people in that licensing department for us, not against us. You should be help- ing licensed drivers. That is not happening.” MP hopeful, Peter Lamb, (Lab) said the national licensing system was ‘fundamentally broken’ and was getting ‘harder to enforce’. He added that until any changes came into effect, the council had ‘a duty, not just to [drivers] but to the public at large, to ensure licensing rules are enforced for their safety and for the safe operation of the trade within Crawley’. MP hopeful Zack Ali (Con) added: “When we have a company operating here and drivers who are not licensed in Crawley, a company not permitted to work in Crawley, freely with hundreds of Uber drivers picking up jobs over here – we need to take action now rather than later.”
JULY 2024 PHTM
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