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If you hate waiting for a cab at the airport, then imagine how the cab drivers feel, waiting hours at a time in a holding pen before being allowed to pick up passengers at a terminal.
Surely there is some way to match up the waiting passenger with the waiting taxi. No? Anyway, the Daily News reports that some drivers were paying their way to the front of the line. All whilst passengers just stood there like suckers, not bribing a soul in their own line.
All in all, "six JFK Airport dispatchers were nabbed Monday for taking bribes from cabbies who wanted to avoid long waits to pick up fares. Queens prosecutors said the dispatchers accepted payouts of $5 and $10 to let taxi drivers avoid waits of as long as three hours." The side business netted them hundreds of extra dollars on a busy day, but created an unfair "playing field for all cab drivers," according to the Port Authority's inspector general.
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Cabbies giving bribes to airport dispatchers? Corruption at JFK? Surely you must be mistaken.
yes - i also read somewhere that the sun was due to rise in the east tomorrow.
I'd pay my way to the front of the taxi line if I thought I could get away with it. Especially on holidays. Fortunately I usually fly into JFK so I can just take the subway home. Which takes like an hour, and of course you have to haul your bags up the stairs at the end, but at least I'm not waiting in line the whole time.
I never understood the holding pen. Apparently, that is worth a cabdriver's while?
I don't understand why any cabbie would wait at the airport for 3 hours to pick up a fair? I understand that you've taken a fare out to the airport, but can't you make a lot more money if you drive back into the city empty in about 20 mins and then pick up fares for the next 2 and half hours?
20 minutes from the airport? maybe at 4 am but it's usually a lot longer.
granted, not three hours but it's a guaranteed large fare vs hit or miss once they get back into town.
They wait because the chances of getting someone not familiar with the city will result in a much higher fair.
I've never understood why the dispatchers only seem capable of queuing up 2-3 taxis at a time. It really seems like that process could be improved.