Taxi drivers protested Wednesday in advance of a meeting held by the Aeroports de Montreal to explain further its plan to change the way taxi and limo permits are handled at the airport.
Hundreds of drivers lined the highways from the Technoparc in St. Laurent towards Trudeau Airport Wednesday morning.
The drivers are unhappy with the ADM's plan to change the way it handles which drivers are allowed to pick up customers from the airport.
For the past 15 years, it has worked as a lottery system. Each year 300 drivers win the right to work from the airport. It costs taxi drivers $2,600 a year for the permit. The price for limos is higher.
It is a lucrative system that the cabbies say worked for them.
Now the airport is looking for a new system. It has said it wants a company to pay the ADM $2 million flat fee for the rights to administer the system.
The ADM is still accepting proposals, but it says the new system must achieve several goals such as clean cabs, faster service and bilingual drivers.
Other airports
Toronto Pearson International Airport works on a request for proposal system, or RFP. Companies bid to have their firms receive licenses to ferry customers from the airport. Mutliple companies can have the permits at the same time, but all companies granted a permit must meet airport standards. According to spokesperson Trish Kale, the last RFP went out in December of 2006.
