Bali's illegal airport taxis

[balinews]

Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali is being urged to improve its taxi service, which is currently the only official public transportation mode available connecting the airport with anywhere on the island.

Pushy unregistered taxi drivers, and even motorcycle taxi (ojek) drivers, offering unreasonable tariffs are still nagging and roaming around the airport compound, which is now undergoing a major facelift for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in October.

“A man, who was not wearing a taxi uniform, approached me at the exit gate of Ngurah Rai’s domestic terminal. He offered me his taxi service. When I told him no, he kept pushing and following me all the way to the parking lot. An airport officer saw what happened but stood still in silence,” said an upset passenger, Kristiawan, who then quickly bargained with another driver wearing a taxi driver’s uniform and left for his Denpasar home with an Rp 80,000 (US$8.28) deal.

Kristiawan was not the only passenger coming across pushy unregistered taxi drivers at Ngurah Rai airport. A traveler, Pradani Hanggoro, wrote on travbuddy.com about her experience when she almost took a cab offering an expensive tariff at Ngurah Rai airport last year.

“A taxi driver came to us and said that we could go to our guesthouse [in Kuta] for Rp 75,000. It was insane, [as] it took only 15 minutes to our guesthouse. We stood there bargaining over the price, but the driver was really stubborn. So my friend went to the taxi service [booth] to check on the real tariff. [We] got the lower price at the taxi service [booth]. We only paid
Rp 50,000 from the airport to Kuta,” she wrote.

The nagging presence of unregistered drivers, to some extent, is influenced by the demand and supply factor — when some people prefer to bargain than pay a fixed rate, surely, their demands will be answered by the presence of unregistered drivers.

The operational manager at Ngurah Rai airport, Efferson Siregar, acknowledged to Bali Daily on Thursday that although the airport provided an official booth to place orders for the taxi service, in reality, unregistered drivers continued to flourish.

“We have continually urged passengers to use the available official taxi service. We have placed signboards to direct passengers to the booth, and we have limited car parking licenses for these taxis,” said Efferson, listing his office’s efforts to reduce the presence of unregistered taxis.

Illegal taxis at Ngurah Rai airport, a hassle for visitors | The Jakarta Post

 

[Andrew]

Just my two cents:

The queue at the official booth is sometimes so long, it takes 20 minutes to get an official taxi.

The rate with a bluebird taxi from my place to the airport is never more than 66.000 IDR. The fixed rate from the airport to Sanur last time was 90.000.

 

[mat]

Best bet is wait for a 'Blue bird' to drop someone off and then grab it quick before anyone else gets it.

 

[sunnycoast]

Best bet is wait for a 'Blue bird' to drop someone off and then grab it quick before anyone else gets it.

That's what I also do or sometimes I ask a friend to come pick,me with a Blue Bird he hired to pick me.
To Seminyak with Blue Bird is around 35-38k.

 

[sugarbear]

That's what I also do or sometimes I ask a friend to come pick,me with a Blue Bird he hired to pick me.
To Seminyak with Blue Bird is around 35-38k.

I too, have experienced the same distasteful manner in which SOME of the local drivers prey on newly arrived visitors. It is such a shame that the government turns a blind eye towards actions that only serve to discourage tourists from coming back to Bali.

 

[hinakos]

The entire taxi system at Bali airport is the first scam that people are exposed to when they arrive.

The queue for the Ngurah Rai taxi's are extemely long now. This is a deliberate ploy to keep demand up and supply low.

After the uproar about the taxis at the airport last year (monopoly), a new company is now working there too. You'll see them with their official "accredditation" tags hanging around their necks as they tout. And who runs this company....none other than the hed of the airport police. When the queus are ridiculously long, talk to one of these people and ask what they are charging to go to a certain destination. Its beyond ridiculous (ie 250,000 to get to Jl 66 from airport). When you tell them thats ridiculous, they laugh and walk away, there is so much frustration with the queues that people are paying this.

So the powers that be are working together to create a system which appears like its NOT a ngurah rai taxi monopoly by allowing this accredited new taxi service run by someone that most drivers are too scared to talk about to operate, and at the same time the person running that service calls the shots on the entire security / traffic movements within the airport. This enables him to restrict taxi's coming into the airport. Private drivers / touters not belonging to his association are dealt with in a most brutal manner. Take a look at how jittery some drivers are from other taxi companies that do airport drop-pffs and then try to pick up a new customer on their way out.....

So they put out some public press about how terrible the freelance drivers are (I agreesome of them are if you allow yourself to be rorted)....and pretend to be doing the right thing when all they are doing is fleecing every single person that walks through the gates.

I always call my driver in advance, i refuse to contribute to the policemans ball.

Freelance taxis at the airport are a good thing. Bad if youre a new tourist hitting Bali for the first time as they WILL take you for a ride. But without fair competition...those running the taxi's at the airport now have a license to print money.

 

[spicyayam]

I just came back from Australia and arriving back in Bali was a bit of a nightmare. When we arrived at the carousel to pick up our luggage there were no carts left. I looked around for a while to no avail, so had to call a porter and a cart magically appeared. Our bags coming off the carousel were staturated. It was raining, but I can't remember ever having my luggage get wet coming off the plane. There was a huge line at the taxi window and when I finally get to the window the guy quoted a price above what was written on the board behind him. I wasn't really in a mood to argue as our son was so tired and just wanted to get out of there. The guy brought the taxi around for us and we had to wade through knee high water to load the car. A nice welcome to Bali!

Traveling as a family is a new experience for me and quite challenging. I will say however and I should post it in the Garuda thread - the Garuda ground staff in Melbourne were excellent.

I can only hope, but it seems unlikely, that there is an ordinary taxi queue in the new airport like they have in most countries.