“Pirate taxi drivers” might reappear at Otopeni Airport, warns Romania’s Chamber of Deputies head

Newsroom 19/04/2016 | 11:48

The administrators of Romania’s Otopeni Airport have rolled out in April new rules for taxi drivers that are looking for clients in this area.

For instance, taxi cars with a trunk smaller than 500 liters are barred from being stationed outside the arrivals terminal of the airport. Taxi drivers using liquefied natural gas LNG to power their cars say they breach this provision, because the gas installation is located in the trunk and this takes up space.

Furthermore, the taxi drivers need additional permits from the Air Transport and Customs Police and they mustn’t have a criminal record, according to the new provisions.

Less than three weeks following the enforcement of the new rules, the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Valeriu Zgonea, wrote a letter to Dan Costescu, the minister of Transport, warning that fair taxi drivers are blocked from parking in the airport area.

“Predictably, this will lead to the reappearance of unauthorized taxi drivers, who have exaggerated and discriminatory tariffs for clients using this service,” according to Zgonea’s letter.

The head of the Chamber of Deputies further stated that there are several thousand passengers in transit each day at the Henri Coanda Airport and they shouldn’t risk any kind of abuse.

“I am sure that you agree that dramatic situations, such as the one of the Japanese student Yurica Masuno, who was killed three years ago after getting in the car of a ‘pirate’ taxi driver, should never happen again,” said Zgonea in the letter.

Zgonea also urged the minister of transport to get involved in the process of improving the regulation for taxi drivers in Romania.

One taxi drivers commented on Zgonea’s page that the new rules favor a certain category of taxis.

There are 7,000 licensed taxis in Bucharest, according to Viorel Radu from an association fighting for the rights of independent taxi drivers. A large proportion of this vehicles are fitted with LNG systems.

The Henri Coanda airport registered 9 million passengers in 2015, according to business newspaper Ziarul Financiar.

At present, there are special terminals inside the airport where passengers can order a taxi.

Ovidiu Posirca

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