Taxi drivers wait four hours between jobs, warn industry on brink of collapse

Wednesday, 16 September 2020

Wellington Taxi driver Maneer Toma regularly waits upwards of three hours for a job.

Several major taxi companies are sounding the alarm, warning the industry could be on the brink of collapse without targeted government support.

Maneer Toma, a driver for Capital Taxis in Wellington, said he has waited upwards of four hours for a job on some days.

“Every day we have done two or three jobs. Before, we had too many, but now there is no more flights, no more visitors, no more business, people are working at home,” he said.

The Wellington Airport dropoffs and pickups are among the most lucrative taxi runs, but when Auckland moved to level 2, that all dried up.

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Normally, Toma would get an airport run three or four times a day.

“Now if we go once it’s good for us,” he said. “It’s very hard, very hard.”

Shantilal Parag of Wellington Combined Taxis is one of the hundreds of drivers nationwide struggling with a downturn in customers.

Most taxi drivers are contractors, not employees, and have to cover the fixed costs of vehicle upkeep and fees.

Desperate to cover their costs, drivers who normally focus on airport pickups are moving into the CBD, creating more competition in city centres for an already reduced number of jobs.

Dave Clyma of Wellington Combined Taxis said revenues had taken “an absolute nosedive” since the second round of lockdowns.

“A huge number of our drivers are struggling. I’ve had a constant flow of drivers coming in saying they need help, they can’t pay their bills, they can’t pay their levies.”

“All taxi drivers are in dire straits. They survived for a bit with the wage subsidy, but they’ve exhausted their resources. You can’t do that for too long before you fall over.”

When Auckland moved to level 2, rides to and from Wellington Airport were slashed by more than 80 per cent overnight.

Revenue for the company, which had been slowly returning to normal, has fallen to 39 per cent of pre-Covid levels – and Clyma reckons his business is doing better than most.

“The airport is 50 per cent of our business. It’s as much as 90 per cent for some smaller companies because they don’t have corporate and government contracts,” Clyma said.

Green Cabs, which had operated since 2007, was put into liquidation earlier this year.

Auckland-based Corporate Cabs saw a 99.2 per cent drop in business compared to the same period last year during the first lockdown, according to chief executive Cameron Allison.

Business was starting to bounce back quicker after the second lockdown, he said, but even in a best-case scenario, Corporate Cabs doesn’t expect to reach more than 65 per cent of their pre-Covid business in the next six to 12 months.

“Our franchise operators are doing it incredibly tough at the moment,“ he said.

“It’s not just Auckland, it’s across the board. It means all the Christchurch to Auckland travel stopped, and vice-versa.

“If there's no further financial support, it’s inevitable that our fleet size will reduce.”

Bob Wilkinson of Blue Bubble taxis said several drivers have opted to simply park their car up and not work after repeatedly failing to break even on a day’s work.

“They’re self-employed, they’re running a business. Insurance isn’t cheap, that doesn’t stop. Then you’ve got car maintenance, licences and levies,” he said. “The impact on them has been absolutely huge.”

Taxi company Green Cabs was liquidated in May, affecting 160 jobs.

If the state of the industry doesn’t change soon, Wilkinson predicts there will be more to follow.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty about the future, we don’t know when it’s going to end,” he said.

“If you’ve survived so far and the end is in sight, you should be fine. If not, all bets are off.”