Airport Cabs Ola

Getting an Ola cab from Chennai airport has become more expensive!

Since August the app based cab aggregator has, in addition to the usual fee, been asking for ‘Transportaion hub charges’ of about Rs 60 – Rs 80 from customers travelling to or from the Chennai airport.

Previously Ola & Uber had been charging an addition Rs10 per trip to/from the airport. However, Airports Authority Of India (AAI) floated tenders to have a dedicated space at the airport and OLA bagged it.

Dedicated Ola hubs and kiosks were set up with separate pickup and drop off points, in an attempt to reduce waiting time and avoid congestion. AAI charges a license fee from OLA to use space inside the airport for this. Parking and other fees are also levied on the operator.

OLA is passing on this extra charges onto the passengers in the form of Transportation Hub Charges and asking customers to pay over and above the usual fare.

In other cities, Ola users get a One-Time Password (OTP) they can use to board the next available cab at the hub. In Chennai, customers continue to wait for the assigned cab to reach the pickup point and hence there is not much difference in the waiting time , according to customers.

At the airport, regular Ola users say, cabs are given a 10-minute exemption to pick up or drop passengers and hence collecting Rs 40-Rs60 extra can be reduced.

Drivers had earlier gone on a protest in protest against the share rides and the high commission rates demanded from them urging the state transport department to come out with a fare table for cabs to help limit the commission rates.

But not much progress has been reported from the government‘s side according to the transportation department.