Uber drivers on strike
Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) says it expects no disruptions to operations at King Shaka International Airport amid an impending four to five–day strike action by the KZN E-hailing Council.
The strike is scheduled to start on Monday, 16 September 2024.
“We would like to assure all travellers that contingency plans have been put in place to mitigate any disruptions to airport operations,” Acsa stated.
“To ensure a smooth travel experience, passengers are urged to allow for extra travel time. We also recommend use of the online check-in before departure.”
Acsa said other transport options, such as airport-accredited metered taxi operators, airport shuttles, car rentals, and public transport services, will still be available.
Although the strike action is set to take place at the airport, the KZN E-hailing Council has stated that its protest is against the app companies, namely Uber, Bolt, and inDrive.
The association is demanding higher prices and that the apps take lower commissions. It has also asked that the e-hailing platform providers ensure the safety of drivers and riders.
In a post on Wednesday, the association said that under the current pricing system, it is a struggle to make enough money to cover the high costs of maintenance, insurance, and stolen vehicle recovery tracking.
“We ask that we send a message to these apps that they can’t treat us like slaves,” the association stated.
“These apps will never respect us if we don’t work together to solve this issue.”
The issue of prices and commissions has been a long-standing dispute between e-hailing drivers and platform owners.
E-hailing drivers threatened a national shutdown last year over exactly the same issues.
Public Private Transport Association chairman Vhatuka Mbelengwa said at the time that drivers want regulations in the e-hailing industry.
“Let’s regulate the industry. Let’s ensure that people are making decent money. Let’s reduce the extremely high commission that Uber is taking away from drivers,” he said.
Uber faces severe challenges in South Africa, including cars in a dilapidated state, bad drivers, frequent cancelled trips, driver strikes, and passengers being attacked and robbed.
It has also become increasingly opaque. One example is when it started adding unexplained surcharges to certain airport trips.
On a trip to and from Lanseria Airport, a MyBroadband reader noticed they were charged a R10 surcharge fee on only one of the journey’s legs.
The surcharge was not shown in the initial price estimate for the trip and was deducted from the rider’s credit card after the fact.
Uber continued adding the surcharges despite Acsa and Lanseria stating that they don’t charge ride-hailing services like Uber to pick up or drop off customers.
“ACSA would like to emphasise that the fees for trips undertaken by riders with the various ride-hailing services are agreed upon between the two parties (passenger and e-hailing service),” the airports company stated.
“ACSA is in no way involved in setting e-hailing services’ fees and does not charge any additional fees or surcharges that are payable by e-hailing services for drop-offs and pick-ups at its airports.”
It added that while additional fees may apply for parking, as they would to all motorists, these are irrelevant to ride-hailing services.
“In short, ACSA would like to categorically state that there are no hidden or other surcharge fees that it levies against e-hailing service providers that would then need to be passed on to passengers.”
Lanseria echoed this statement, saying it doesn’t impose supplementary fees for e-hailing drivers regarding airport pick-ups and drop-offs.
“No surcharge is paid to the airport for any such services,” it added.