TAXIS at Brisbane Airport will have a new queuing area after a crisis meeting this morning between protesting drivers and the Brisbane Airport Corporation resolved a simmering dispute.
BAC spokeswoman Rebecca McConochie said the temporary call forward area the taxi drivers were protesting over would be moved from Moreton Drive to a deserted area off Airport Drive, near Banksia Place, and house about 400 cabs.
A group of cab drivers locked their doors and refused to take passengers last night following the arrest of one of their colleagues and following a spate of parking tickets for stopping on yellow lines as they waited in the queue.
McConochie said a taxi was parked illegally last night so police requested the driver move.
``As a result the taxi drivers have decided to protest about the call forward area. There's a taxi feeder located at the domestic terminal (and) when that is filled up they go to the call forward area,'' she said.
General Manager of Black and White Cabs, John Tighe, said the lack of taxi ranks was a problem across Brisbane, not just at the airport.
``Facilities for drivers having to wait at the airport is not desirable. I know the BAC is building purpose built feeder ranks, but there is insufficient spaces for the number of cabs that are available in Brisbane,'' Tighe said.
Lee Sims, Secretary of the Cab Association of Queensland, said last night's action was not an organised protest.
``It's nothing we organised and nothing we recommend, but it does show you the frustration that's out there. We've tried to warn the minister for 12 months about this. This gets down to an overload in the industry of too many cabs out.''
He said the incident at the airport was a case of a policeman doing his duty.
``A driver felt he was being unfairly treated. He probably overreacted that then set up something like a powder keg across town.''
`The situation is about standards. There are far too many taxi drivers who were not properly trained en masse which has caused problems.''
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COMMENT: The troglodytes running the Brisbane Airport Corporation - whose
PR skills range somewhere between Buckley's and none - are at it again.
How management could possibly allow this situation to degenerate to the
point where some imbecile copper arrests one of the cabbies - beggars
belief. The BAC and the Police have turned the Brisbane Airport into some
third world facility because of their lack of common sense and basic business
acumen.
