OLA/Uber Rides From Kolkata Airport May Become Costlier!
Your Ola/Uber ride from Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport in Kolkata may soon get costlier.
Agencies handling the parking and toll booths at the Kolkata Airport have decided to levy extra parking fee for ‘App’ based cabs.
Passengers may have to start paying Rs 100 extra as a fee for their cab parking at the airport. The two major app-based cab aggregators, Ola and Uber, are negotiating with authorities to reduce this fee.
Currently, passengers don’t have to pay extra as parking toll or fee, thanks to the arrangement between the cab aggregators and the Airports Authority of India (AAI). However, if this decision goes through, parking operators will start charging a hefty fee which will eventually be transferred to the passenger who has booked the ride.
According to parking agency officials, they have been loosing out on a lot of revenue as app-based cabs are allowed to park for free on the premises and on any given day around 400-500 cabs are parked in the parking lot.
Around a year ago, airport authorities entered into an agreement with Ola and Uber, allowing them to park their vehicles at a designated lot outside the old domestic airport terminal in exchange of a lump-sum annual payment.
Around Rs 35 was added to the fare of passengers booking cabs at the airport. But with the arrangement expiring earlier this month and the mandate to collect parking fee now with a new agency, AAI has asked the app based cab aggregators to negotiate the agreement with the latter.
According to the Cab officials, they will hold a meeting next week and discuss possible ways to reduce this amount or find a new way of paying the rent.