The president of the Taxi Cooperative San Marcial de Arrecife, Lito Guillén, spoke a week ago on Radio Lanzarote-Onda Cero to talk about the problems facing the taxi sector and the lack of services for the local population in the capital of Lanzarote when cruise ships arrive.
The taxi drivers of Arrecife have achieved an improvement in fares and Guillén assured that they are "hopeful, not happy, in reality it has not risen as much as the rest of the items that make up our existence, but the increase is always good and, therefore, we can do a little more to face the maintenance of our business", he said in the morning show Buenos días, Lanzarote. "We have a little more commercial margin to have a little more profit", said the president of the Cooperative.
The flag-down rate will be 3.05 euros and the kilometer traveled will be 0.80 cents. "In Lanzarote there has never been so much difference in terms of fares. Each municipality has a different fare and formerly in Lanzarote always had the same fare for all municipalities", said Guillén.
The president of the taxi cooperative Los Marcial states that with the fare increase "between 25 and 30% of the taxis would now choose to work in the municipality of Arrecife, instead of precisely on the cruise ships". These statements are made in the midst of the controversy raised after the residents of the capital see how they are left without taxi service when cruise ships arrive to the capital, because they do not pick them up and decide to attend to the tourists who arrive at the port.
Lito Guillén has defended that this situation is due to different reasons. "We do not have drivers for the vehicles we have. By not having drivers, the few that are working, there comes a time when they leave, they get overwhelmed and get tired. They are very young people who when the weekend or a bridge comes they want to have fun and the taxi is stopped", he added.
Also, taxi drivers in Arrecife can request since 2011 that taxi drivers from other municipalities come to the city when the demand exceeds the available staff. However, Guillén denounced that "not exclusively people come to work from another municipality of Arrecife to be with us queuing at the cruises", but that "people come to work for anyone who is wherever they are, in the street, at the stop, that can be picked up, wherever they go".
In this line, he indicated that "we do not have to be selective as is happening right now, selecting passengers or users who are going abroad. If it is your turn to provide this service, pick up this service and for that we need a strong police presence". To conclude, he has sent a message to the taxi drivers "We are leaving the money thrown away, the taxi driver who is aware that this is our work day by day, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year".
