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Few industries are more affected by Corona than the taxi business. Almost nothing happened in the spring and the situation is extremely tense even now. Many drivers and companies have already given up. More bankruptcies threaten.
In spring, in early May, Leszek Nadolski dared to make a bold forecast: if the corona pandemic continues for a long time, about a quarter of all taxis in Berlin could disappear. The president of the capital’s taxi union complained at the RBB station that hardly anyone wanted to be driven. A wave of insolvencies is advancing on your industry. The first companies have already given up.
Five months later it must be said: Nadolski’s forecast is about to come true. The pandemic nearly destroyed the taxi business. For drivers and businesses, there is almost nothing that can be counted on right now.
Suddenly the customers left
The depression was particularly severe in the spring. With contact restrictions and travel restrictions, club, bar and restaurant closures, taxi drivers lost their customers. Business travelers stopped coming, no one wanted to go to the airport, and partiers weren’t there either. The number of trips collapsed enormously: up to 90 percent.
The situation has eased since then, but it remains anything but optimistic. The industry is a long way from the pre-crisis level. With the few trips they make today, drivers, minus the costs, often earn less than minimum wage. Hope remains that it will improve in a few months and that they will have to wait until then. But what if it doesn’t improve?
Twelve percent of drivers had to give up
The effects are already dramatic. Since the beginning of the year, the number of taxis in Berlin has dropped from more than 8,200 to 7,300. Almost 1,000 decommissioned vehicles mean a decrease of around twelve percent. And Leszek Nadolski sees that the end of the flagpole is still a long way off, as he tells t-online.
The situation is not better in other cities. Whether in Lübeck or Leverkusen: everywhere taxis lack customers because tourists are absent, because clubs are closed or because there are no trade fairs. For Bremen, the board of a taxi company in the “Weser-Kurier” calculated that there would be 20 percent less turnover in daily business, 40 percent less in night business on weekends and even 60 percent less in night business during the week.
Without his wife, Nadolski would not have survived time
Nadolski can also confirm these figures for Berlin. It currently has a 50 percent capacity. Without the help of the government, he would not have survived the past few months, even if his wife had not supported him. A taxi driver is currently paying, says Nadolski and laughs. But they don’t last longer than March and April, either. “So we have to think about how to proceed,” he says.
Leszek Nadolski: The president of the Berlin taxi union sees that his profession is facing more difficulties. (Source: private)
Many of his teammates currently have to reload with Hartz IV. Others canceled their business entirely. Especially freelancers like him tend to be on the road longer than is actually healthy. It is said that some drivers even sleep in a taxi to be able to make all the trips that come their way. Nadolski confirms that it is now common practice, especially among young colleagues. However, he himself lasted a maximum of twelve hours.
Berlin taxi drivers are building a new foothold
In Berlin, taxi drivers are now trying to generate more sales through patient trips, reports the head of the union. The industry has long ignored the issue in the capital because tourists, business travelers and partygoers were well catered for. In other regions, these regular trips with patients from A to B have long been an important mainstay of colleagues. The people of Berlin were certainly too arrogant, says Nadolski.
What bothers him, however, is the curfew that the Berlin Senate decreed last week. Bars, pubs and Spätis now have to close from 23:00 to 06:00. This is one more blow and an additional financial burden for the taxi drivers’ night business, which is already in crisis. Therefore, Nadolski is very concerned. “If things continue like this,” he says, “in a few months another 1,000 taxis will be out of circulation.”
