I arrived in Sydney airport this evening from Cairns, intending to actch a taxi to my nearby home. Not such an outrageous idea I thought, but I was very wrong.
Down stairs at the Qantas taxi rank (peoplised sheep gates) there was queue of about five hundred people and not a taxi to be seen.
Thinking myself smart I thought that I would go upstairs to beet the crowd and see whether I could hail a cab that was dropping off, but of course none of the drivers would take my fair as they aren't allowed to pick up from the departures section for fear of big fines from SACL.
Next I went over to terminal two to see if I could get a cab there as it's upstream toward the taxi staging area at Sydney Airport. When I got there I found the situation was far worse as the few taxi's that were at the airport were driving straight past the low cost terminal 2 favoring Qantas. The only taxi I saw go in to pick up at T2 was one that the taxi attendant waved in by standing literally in front of it and forced it to go there!!
Next I thought I would go to the staging area and try to get a cab there only to find the taxi staging areas COMPLETELY EMPTY.
In the end I was picked up by my good wife and finally got home. WHY CANT SYDNEY AIRPORT ORGANISE TAXIS TO MEET THE TRAVELLING PUBLIC??
I did note a sign that said that a $2.00 surcharge was being effected from the first of this month on taxi fares at the airport, and I suspect that this is the cause of this malaise.
Greedy SACL strikes again. Reason 3567 why airports should not have been privatised Mr. Howard.
If anyone says it's SACL's right to charge this ridiculous fee, then I say OK then I should have the right to choose to use their competition...........
This never happened in the past ten years that I have been using Sydney Airport as a traveller, and the problem lies squarely with SACL's "kerbside management".
Kerbside MISSMANAGEMENT I say.
