Inflation is also extremely difficult for this industry. Many entrepreneurs in Styria have already nervously thrown in the towel.
“Catastrophe!” – Nowadays if you ask a taxi driver how business is going, you will get the same answer almost everywhere. An entire industry sends an SOS, as it were. Monday to Thursday night trading has completely collapsed. Add to that the sky-high prices. “From fuel to maintenance to buying new cars, if you can get them at all – everything has become massively more expensive,” said industry spokeswoman Sylvia Loibner.
professional reorientation
As a result, many taxi drivers have already parked their cars in frustration and reoriented themselves professionally. “Before the corona pandemic, we had about 1,000 drivers in our group alone – currently there are only 550,” calculates Loibner, who also heads the 878 Group, the largest Styrian provider. The number of cars in your company alone has dropped from 353 at the start of the year to just under 300.
At the moment, the taxi drivers can only hope for improvement. If anything, Advent is the traditionally best time of year for the industry. And everyone urgently needs sales: Compared to pre-Corona times, the taximeters in Graz registered 20 percent fewer journeys this year alone.
Hope for new rate
The Christmas business is probably little more than a drop in the ocean to end the taxi crisis. Great hopes are therefore pinned on the long-awaited increase in the Styrian taxi fare in the industry. We’ve been working on it since April. “We hope that a decision will be made this year,” said Loibner. This would also make taxi fares more expensive next year.
Source: Krone
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
