THE TAXI DRIVERS OF GERMANY ARE TRYING TO AVOID BANKRUPTCY

The outbreak of COVID-19 forces German taxi drivers to become more creative. Some companies are beginning to actively offer the medicines and food delivery services. At the same time, many drivers call the situation a disaster, predicting a wave of bankruptcies that could overwhelm the entire industry.

The head of the Berlin guild of taxi drivers Leszek Nadolski, describes the parking lot of the Berlin airport, full of idle taxies as a terrible picture. According to the expert, only 5 thousand cars out of 8 thousand actually work in Berlin. The drivers found themselves in a situation of a sharp reduction in passenger traffic - the driver earns no more than € 50 for a ten-hour working day, while the minimum wage in Germany amounts to € 9.35 per hour. The losses reach 80-90% due to the fall in demand.

Alexander Dragichevich, a representative of the Taxi Ruf Köln cooperative, located in West German Cologne, is sounding the alarm, recording a reduction in traffic by almost 80%.

His concern is warranted by the fact that the taxis in Germany are the part of a public transport system. This means that companies, involved in the passengers’ transportation, have to work no matter what.

What is more, according to Dragichevich, more than 50% of taxi cars (1100 cars) in Cologne do not leave the parking lots and garages.

In Cologne, the taxi drivers have to improvise, trying to make amends for the financial damage from the fall in demand. They expand their offerings by delivering medicines and products. Some of the drivers even make purchases at a fixed price, trying to fulfill social tasks and provide assistance to those citizens who cannot independently visit the retail outlets. The similar services are being offered by the taxi drivers of Hamburg and Dusseldorf.

Bavarian taxi companies went even further. Drivers in Munich implement the transportation of the doctors and everyone who works in the medical field free of charge, hoping thereby to minimize the risk of their infection.

In the capital of Germany, the taxi guild and city authorities agreed that drivers would deliver food and goods from pharmacies at the prices lower than the usual fare for passenger transportation.

The drivers are equipped with the disinfectants. At first, when masks were in short supply, drivers used homemade pieces of plastic for themselves to have at least some protection against possible infection. Similar tricks were demonstrated by Cologne taxi drivers - some installed plexiglas partitions, others put on the protective films.

The main question of the German taxi drivers is what to do next, despite the fact that thousands of drivers in Germany received special funding from the federal government. Self-employed citizens and small enterprises with no more than 10 employees can apply for financial support.

However, according to the government officials, these funds should compensate the survival costs of people (for example, rent and utilities), and not to cover the costs of operating the transport.

The local experts note that the crisis hit hard those companies that had more than 10 employees, because they could not receive the financial support from the state.

They can hold out for a maximum of 4-5 weeks, and then they will inevitably go bankrupt, but according to the taxi owners, there are no hopes to improve the situation in the nearest future.