I have to admit I am a big fan of Uber – regardless of the price, I think in many cities it offers a much smoother experience than taking a taxi. At the same time, there are many people not sharing the same views. That, of course, includes taxi drivers around the world that organize protests against Uber (and other similar services) every now and then.
One such protest occurred in Prague earlier this week, when hundreds of taxis blocked one of the main access roads to Vaclav Havel airport in the city.
Taxikáři blokují cestu na letiště Václava Havla i opačný směr. #taxi #praha #uber #protest #airport Live stream: https://t.co/pdEyDl3Mcu pic.twitter.com/LfvN7n2CkW
— Blesk Zprávy (@Blesk24) 2017年10月2日
Now, I won’t get into why I think that blocking the airport access road and disrupting travel plans of thousands of people in a country where taxis already have a fairly bad reputation is not an amazing idea…
But, I want to point to the great work done by Prague airport to minimize disruptions caused by the protest.
Letting Public Transportation Pass Through the Apron
What the airport did was encourage travelers to use public transportation – the reason being that the public buses could take a special route around the blocked road that the regular cars could not.
And, in this case, the “special route” meant that the public buses could drive across the airport – passing through the apron – in order to avoid the blocked road.
See the video below to see what the not-so-usual ride looked like:
All I can say is, I am impressed by how the airport handled the situation. While the protest was a big inconvenience for many, arranging for the public buses to be able to pass through the airside certainly made the travel of many passengers easier.
And, I hope the next time a non-passenger gets to be on a bus airside, it’s on one of Prague airport’s excellent airside photo tours and not during an anti-Uber protest!