GUWAHATI: While Ola and Uber cab drivers have been alleged to be refusing rides to the Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport at Guwahati, they have pointed out the “exorbitant” parking charges as a reason for the same.
“The airport authorities charge us a lot for the parking and we need a space for parking our car as we have to wait for our passengers to arrive and loading their luggage takes some time too. The fee is too high for airport parking and in the end it turns out to be a loss for us. We can’t afford the loss and that is why we don’t take pick up or drop off passengers to the airport,” said one Ola driver, Jiten Ch Deka.
Not only is the pickup and waiting a problem but a drop off is also an inconvenience. “After a drop off, we need another pick up from the airport itself. We can’t afford to go back to the city without a pick up as it will turn out to be a loss for us. And to get another pick up we need to wait at the airport. While this takes time, the charge for the airport parking keeps increasing by the minute,” said another Uber driver, Koustov Jyoti.
One the other hand, people in need of the services are rather upset about the unavailability of the same. “Last month I had a flight to catch to Mumbai. I had to attend the Google Cloud Summit that was being held there the very next day. I had booked an Ola from Bharalumukh to the airport. Just moments after I booked it, the driver called and asked me where I wanted to go. When I told the driver of the location he immediately asked me to cancel the ride. I did not do so as I was already running late. The driver was very rude and told me that I had to cancel the ride, which I later did.
I had to immediately call up a friend who finally dropped me off. Had it not been for my friend, I would’ve missed the flight,” said one Simran Jain, a resident of Bharalumukh.
The drivers not only refuse pickups from the airport but also refuse to take rides from areas that are too far away. The passengers are asked to cancel the ride because it is chargeable if they cancel it themselves. On refusing to do so, they either start getting rude or aggressive and sometimes abusive too.
Another Ola driver, Milon Swargiary said, “The main reason for not taking rides to the airport is that after dropping off the passengers at the airport, we have to wait for hours to get a booking again at the airport and sometimes we don’t get a booking even after we are there for the whole day.
We cannot waste our entire day there as we get many bookings in the city and after the drop off we have to come back to the city without a booking. So the trip to the airport costs us both time and money.”
Just last month, an Ola driver was accused of misbehaving with a passenger who needed to be dropped off at the airport only because the passenger had opted to pay by Ola money. Not a month after that, more complaints started filing in against Ola and Uber drivers. A lot of people had complaints against drivers who asked their designated passengers to cancel the ride, especially passengers who need to be dropped off at the airport. On inquiring about this problem, the team at G Plus found out that the problem really was nothing but the unjustifiable and exorbitant parking charges at the airport.
