Helping hand

Complaints from taxis at Son Sant Joan airport. | Jason Moore

Jason MoorePalma15/05/2021 10:16

It was the first time in many months that I had seen Palma so busy. The city was buzzing with people on Thursday afternoon. I am glad to report that many were tourists. It looked as if the city had returned to normal after the 18 month nightmare. But there was a problem.

There was a long line of people waiting for taxis. I was told that there wasn’t a taxi in sight and some people had been waiting for more than 30 minutes. I found this rather surprising because Palma cab drivers have suffered badly during the pandemic. Finally, some taxis did arrive and I asked the driver about the absence of cabs.

He replied that the Balearic government had ruled at the height of the pandemic that only 10 percent of Palma’s 1,500 cabbies could work at any one time. Despite the tourist season taking off (slightly) this ruling remains in force. So 90 percent of cab drivers were sitting at home watching queues forming for cabs and they couldn’t work. A terrible situation. The local government looks set to remedy this state of affairs but local taxi drivers are not happy.

They believe that they should now be able to work again because tourists are starting to arrive and the economic outlook is better. The local government needs to be helping the local business community not hindering them. It is the same with shops. Shops would be allowed to open when they want not when the government says so. There are economic hard times ahead and we must be more flexible.