Our first trip since the new rules and regulations regarding taxis to and from Otopeni Airport were introduced on February 1st, allegedly for our convenience.
Since that date, regular Bucharest taxis have been forbidden from entering Otopeni’s car parks, where they used to wait for clients who had ordered them (clients eager to avoid the Fly Taxi monopoly).
This is not, at first glance, a problem if you are headed to the airport. Until you try to get a taxi to the airport, that is.
We tried four on Wednesday morning, all from good, trustworthy Bucharest taxi companies (there is always a clutch of them hanging around on the corner of our street).
None would take us to the airport.
The reason? There are two.
1. There is an increased police presence at the airport now, who check that all taxis dropping clients off have the rovinieta (road tax). As the rovinieta is only compulsory when travelling outside Bucharest, few taxi drivers have it. Alas, Otopeni is beyond Bucharest’s city limits. The fine for no rovinieta is 50 lei.
2. As they can’t hang around the car park (or indeed the entire vicinity of the airport) after they have dropped you off, the chances of them getting a fare as they go back into town is greatly reduced.
We did finally manage to get a taxi to Otopeni, but only after going back to the office and calling one, specifying that we would need a car with the rovinieta. It took a while, and it is a good job the underpass has been finished, else it would have been touch and go as far as catching the flight was concerned.
Easy solution to problem (1) is to exempt taxis coming to and from Otopeni from the rovienieta.
As that involves joined up thinking do not expect it to happen.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
@bucuresti_boy:
I keep saying it all the time: Romania is among the last free countries in the civilized world where people can still do what they want.
The rest of the civilized world is just a big prison.
Hi there Craig!
I was looking for some information on my hometown Bucharest when I came across your website – or whatever.
As a gay citizen of bucharest, I dare you to publish this pamphlet video on your site – don’t worry it’s approved by Accept Roamania and it’s been made by me, one of their former volunteers.
That being said, your attitude in the blog seems very arrogant towards Bucharest. I now study in an English town – and babe, it is far worse than any town in Romania (even people who are born and bred here hate it).
The pubs, most of which filled with rednecks, the awful architecture of most the city, the appalling conditions on campus, the “clubs”, and AND the homophobia of (many of) the people far exceeds that which I have experimented in my own city.
Honestly, I am trying to learn advertising and I am sick and tired of communist teachers trying to de-construct it. What are they going to put in place?
I believe that Communism is dead it’s been dead for the past 20 years and people should not bitch about everything, especially not with such arrogance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVTmCHuKfHA
bw
Arrogant? No.
You are not the first to make the mistake of thinking that because I write about things I dislike in Bucharest (where I live) I am insinuating that everything in the UK is fine and dandy. It is not. And if i lived in a small town in the UK, I would probably be writing about the things there that annoyed me.
As for UK university professors being almost entirely left-wing, that’s the way it is. Do not expect it to change.
Oh, so the most illustrious minds of the United Kingdom are left-wing!
There, you see?? Socialism is a more fair system than Capitalism
Have not given way to the temptation of grabbing a taxi in Bucharest yet in 3 years. I prefer waking up early and trying my luck on the RATB rather than dealing with the crooks that call themselves taxi drivers.
The Rovinieta costs 28 Euro / year, this means 2 Euro and something / month…gigantic!