Bulgaria has a brand-new airport terminal and Sofia takes great pride in it. Unfortunately, in the case of Susan Hunsberger and her husband, both from the US, some sad realities about how terminal 2 is being maintained in terms of taxi service have appeared.
In a letter and subsequent phone call to The Sofia Echo, Mrs Hunsberger described what happened to her husband and her on the night of April 15 at the new terminal of Sofia Airport. Their plane landed at about 11pm and the couple wanted to catch a taxi to their home in Bistritsa (near Sofia).
“It was our first experience arriving at the new terminal. We have been living in Bulgaria for the past 10 years and we only use OK Taxi’s cars. Usually if the meter is running, the average price to Bistritsa is 15-16 leva during the day and during the night it doubles,”she told The Sofia Echo.
Susan tried to negotiate a fixed price with a driver who had the OK Taxi logo on his car. The driver named a price of 70 euro.
“After a while he went down to 50 euro,”she said. Susan noticed something interesting. “The driver, who would not give me his name, was on his mobile phone continuously talking to a woman at the arrivals exit who seemed to be arranging passengers for him.”
Naturally, the Hunsbergers refused to pay the unreasonably high price and decided to try for a different taxi, which turned into mission impossible. The problem was that the only other available taxis at the airport were from Express Taxi. “The police were simply not letting any other taxis come to the taxi stand. There were travellers with their luggage running out onto the road, to catch them before they had to move on. There was no sign of a bus stop either,” Susan said.
Eventually, the Hunsbergers had no choice but negotiate a price of 50 leva with an Express Taxi driver, which was still twice the usual price.
Said Susan: “To me it appears to be a corruption scheme between the police and taxi drivers.” Susan took action and wrote a complaint letter to OK Taxi. She cited the licence plate number on the car: C1188BC. She got a quick reply from Lyudmil Lazarov, executive director of OK Supertrans AD, who said that a car with such licence plates was not among OK Taxi’s fleet and that the driver was apparently an imposter. According to Mrs Hunsberger, their case was not isolated.
“I have discovered that I am not alone in my absolute disgust that this has been allowed to flourish. It’s shocking,” she said.
The Sofia Echo is currently investigating the issue of taxi services at Sofia Airport. If you have had similar experiences, please write to news@sofiaecho.com.
