More Bad News for BTV Taxi’s
3 Feb., 2010
To all affected’s disappointment, AirTran Airways announced it will not -as anticipated- be returning to provide service to Burlington Int’l Airport in the spring of 2010.
This is more bad news for the airport on-demand queue taxi’s. It’s already known 2009 BTV flight passenger traffic was down by 9% from 2008, which as would be expected, has incrementally adversely affected the Airports on-demand taxi ridership as well. For the present, the loss of AirTran would seem to indicate another dip in ridership in 2010.
Additionally it has recently come to our attention that there are intentions at some future date to have a Greyhound station near the airport, which will likely be detrimental to both city and airport taxi ridership alike.
Combine that with another level being added to the airport parking garage, and the future of the queue permitted taxi franchisees is not bright.
Another detriment to the airport taxi’s income -that formerly seemed to be inflicted upon the whole by a few- increasingly comes to light in passenger comments. For example, an O/O friend, recently engaged his passenger returning home from one of his regular business trips, in order to clarify the destination address for logistic purposes(i.e., to determine the most efficient route, involving the least number of traffic lights), which elicited the following quip:
“I’ve had cab drivers that were taking me home, who were coming to Burlington for the first time.”
If that doesn’t quite scan, apply a sarcasm filter with an eye on the fact that the passenger was referencing City of Burlington licensed on-demand airport taxi’s. If you require further extrapolation, please ask Dear Cabbie as there are passenger tales galore(perhaps we should have a contest).