Ordinary Gweilo

If you want to save money when going to or from the airport by taxi, you can book by phone and enjoy a significant discount.  As an alternative, there are so-called “vans” that can take more people and more luggage than a normal taxi.  However, both of these services are “illegal”. 

The Airport Authority recently decided to make it more difficult for these rogues to pick up passengers at the airport by stopping them from using the car park closest to Terminal 1 and forcing them to use Car Park 3, which is next to Terminal 2 (map).  The joke being, of course, that T2 is only used for departures, not arrivals. 

This prompted a protest by taxi and van drivers that blocked the airport for several hours on Saturday night.  As a result, a temporary arrangement was put in place for pick-up to be allowed at Car Park 4 near to the Regal Hotel, but now it has been “agreed” that the new arrangements will be reinstated (Battle of the cabbies ends as deal is struck on airport arrangements – subscription required):

Under the new arrangements, radio taxis will no longer be able to pick up passengers near Car Park No1 – an interim measure introduced the day after the blockade. Instead, from noon on Sunday, they will move to the more distant Car Park No3 as officials originally proposed.

The move was meant to address the grievances of meter-taxi drivers, who complained their business had been affected by the radio taxis, which they said illegally solicited passengers by offering discounts.

“The law-abiding drivers join long queues outside the airport to wait for passengers, while these discount-taxi groups just roll in and snatch our business. Is this fair to those who spend a whole day waiting?” said To Sun-tong, of the Motor Transport Workers’ General Union.

About 150 taxi drivers gathered for a sit-in protest at the temporary pick-up point for radio-taxi drivers while the groups met with the Transport Department at its Wan Chai headquarters at 10am yesterday. The drivers, who had threatened more vigorous action if the talks fell through, dispersed when the resolution was announced at 12.30pm.

In a briefing outside the headquarters, Mr Wong said the new measures would allow easier law enforcement over illegal soliciting of passengers at the airport.

“The arrangement is not only a reasonable balance of the interests of different parties, but also enables police to focus their efforts on monitoring and conducting key-point inspections at the airport,” he said.

“We will combat illegal soliciting activities from discount-taxi groups, and also the illegal carriage of passengers without luggage by goods vans.”

Where to start?  Well, it’s hard to see what harm is caused by allowing people to book taxis.  It seems a much more efficient arrangement than taxi drivers waiting in long queues.  I find it hard to believe that drivers would wait all day for a fare, but of course they are willing to wait for a while because the fares from the airport to Kowloon, HK Island and some parts of the New Territories are high enough to justify it. 

Common sense would suggest that if the queue is too long, drivers will not wait, and given that taxis have radios they must be able to find out the approximate waiting time and therefore whether it might be worthwhile going to the airport to the join the queue. 

Elsewhere in Hong Kong it is, of course, quite legal to take phone bookings and pick up passengers, and it’s allowed at UK airports as well, but Hong Kong has no equivalent of the “private hire” cars (aka “mini cabs”) that offer this service at Heathrow and elsewhere. 

Taxi drivers that offer discounts are doing this because they think they can earn more money that way.  Again, it’s hard to see what harm this does.   Isn’t competition a good thing?

Anyway, it seems that this matter isn’t really resolved:

However, cargo-van groups and radio-taxi drivers remained unhappy with the new arrangement.

Kwok Chi-piu, who represented the radio-taxi groups at yesterday’s meeting, said he was forced to accept the proposal as he was the odd one out among the 28 associations.

The Airport Authority has agreed to set up new direction signboards and temporary covers along the passages between Terminal 1 and Car Park No3 within the next few days to protect passengers from any bad weather.

The Hong Kong Union of Light Van Employees expressed dismay that cargo vans were not allowed to wait for business in any airport car parks, but union chairman Ip Moon-lam said it would not take further action. Goods vans may continue to unload outside Car Park No1.

I never knew there was a “Hong Kong Union of Light Van Employees”.