Friday June 25, 2010

I’M writing in support of Gerry whose letter “Taken for a ride at LCCT taxi stand” appeared in The Star on June 23.

My experience was not the taxi stand at the LCCT but at KLIA. I’m a frequent traveller and due to the perpetual problems in getting taxis there, I would ask my regular taxi to pick me up whenever possible. For those occasions when I couldn’t get him, I had to resort to the taxis at KLIA.

And almost every time I’m at the taxi counter, I could hear the lady behind the counter trying to “cheat” customers, especially foreigners with excuses like “We don’t have enough budget taxis (so you’ll have to take the premier ones)”, “Your luggage is too big (when it wasn’t)” and “You have too many people (when they don’t)”.

I feel so ashamed that visitors to our country encounter such people who give a bad image of our country. MAS does an excellent job on the plane in welcoming visitors to our country in their video on the airport layout and facilities and then it is all spoilt by the people managing the taxi counters.

We don’t need such people and neither do we need to have one company monopolising the service especially when they are out to fleece people. We should learn from Singapore. It is always a breeze to get a taxi at Changi Airport even at the busiest of times.

As for me, I’ll stay away from the taxis at KLIA until they improve and as for my foreign friends or colleagues, I’ll ask them to take the train or I’ll pick them up.

M.C. WONG,
Kuala Lumpur.

This article is a verbatim copy of the original article from The Star.