The leader union of the Algarve’s taxi drivers is delighted at the chaos caused as over 200 of his members clogged up the access road to Faro airport, leaving customers without essential transport to court, hospital and many other hard to change appointments.
The drivers are protesting against the increase in the number of vehicles working in the region during the summer which deprive them of business.
The demonstration by taxi drivers in Faro, Lisbon and Porto is against the new laws covering the new transport platforms such as Uber and Cabify.
In the Algarve, "around 50% of the Algarve's taxi fleet, 425 cars,” left the organisers "very satisfied with the mobilisation."
Taxi driver leader, Francisco José Pereira, said that in the Algarve, the main problem experienced by taxi drivers is the large number of non-taxi passenger transport vehicles that trade in the summer months, taking business from traditional taxis.
"Our great concern is that this year, in June, July and August, we were invaded by hundreds of passenger cars in non-taxi vehicles, something we never had before," said Perreira.
"We ask for the suspension of the law 45/18 of August 10, and for it not to come into force until the Constitutional Court has its say about what we think is unconstitutional, the inequality between the two sectors when the service is the same."
This is the fourth major protest since 2015 against the new wave of transport providers. The new law was passed on July 12 and will come into effect on November 21st, 2018, but the taxi drivers still don’t like it.
Representatives of the taxi sector sent a request to MPs who are asked to suspend the new law until the Constitutional Court has decided if the law is constitutional.
One of the main gripes the taxi drivers have is that the new transport providers are not subject to a quota system - a maximum number of cars per municipality or per region, as is the case with taxis.
