Sudbury airport inking new taxi contract: Cabs still available to pick up travellers.

• Author: McDonald, Darren
• Position: CONFERENCE & CONVENTION

A six-year contract that gave Sudbury Cab the exclusive right to line up outside the Greater Sudbury Airport and serve passengers as they come off their flights has expired.

That means any cab company in the city can now pick up passengers at the airport, Fly Sudbury spokesperson Hailey Short said.

"Right now, any other taxi can also come to the airport and pick people up as well," Short said this week. "But we are encouraging people to prearrange."

Under the previous contract, any cab company could take people to the airport, but only Sudbury Cab had what's known as 'queueing rights'--the right to wait outside the terminal to pick people up as they got off the plane. Other companies could only pick them up if the passenger them called ahead of time to book a ride.

An interim contract has been signed with another company to ensure there are taxis at the airport, Short said, and it will run until a new contract is awarded.

"We have worked out an agreement with another company in the interim," Short said. "So with them it's guaranteed there will be taxis available for people who are getting off the plane right away, similar to what Sudbury Cab was offering."

In a June interview, Jean-Mathieu Chenier, director of marketing and airport development at Fly Sudbury, said a surge in passenger traffic this year and last has made getting a cab harder under the exclusive rules in the previous contract.

There was an 18 per cent growth in passenger numbers in 2017, and...