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Car rental companies are set to get a revenue boost once Mumbai’s new airport terminal becomes functional. Some even anticipate a two-fold increase in demand.
“If more passengers fly in and out of the airport, we have a better chance of selling an airport drop or full-day taxi package,” said Gaurav Aggarwal, Co-founder of Savaari.com, a car-rental start-up.
Siddhartha Pahwa, Chief Executive Officer of Meru Cabs, India’s largest radio taxi service, expects his taxis to double the number of trips from the international airport over the year.
Currently, Meru Cabs does 8,000 to 10,000 trips a month from the international airport. Pahwa says that even drivers will be keener to ply to the airport once a six-lane elevated road, which connects the city’s Western Express highway with T2, is thrown open to motorists. “The biggest challenge in Mumbai is traffic congestion, making trips unviable for drivers during peak hours. We have done a recce of the new approach to T2 and find that it will significantly reduce travelling time,” he added.
The company will take another 100 parking slots for its cabs at T2’s parking facility, which is capable of accommodating 5,200 cars. Savaari is looking to add another 75 cabs to its current network of 400. Companies such as Savaari and Ola Cabs do not own cars but work with a range of partners/operators.
“Since T2 will focus on international air travel, many operators will be keen to add more drivers in order to monetise the night shift,” said an Ola Cabs spokesperson.
TABcab, which has 2,800 cabs in Mumbai, expects its fleet to do a thousand trips daily from the airport, against 550-600 now.
Prasenjit Bagchi, Chief Marketing Officer, SMS Taxicabs, which runs TABcab, believes that radio taxi providers would benefit from T2’s ‘feelgood’ factor.
“Air travellers would want to get in and out of a world-class terminal in a comfortable car. Hence, a good percentage of the business of black-and-yellow cabs will come to fleet cabs,” said Bagchi. The company may take new parking slots at T2, in addition to the 50 slots it has at the old terminal.
adith.charlie@thehindu.co.in
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