CityNews – October 1st, President of NakornLanna Co., Ltd. Singhkam Nanti, who has the right to issue licences to the nearly 3,000 songtaew and over 350 taxis in Chiang Mai held a protest at Chiang Mai International Airport after losing a bid for the concession rights of running the airport taxi services.
For the past few years, Jed Yod Brother, a private company, have won the bids and have been managing the airport taxis. However, after the recent bid on September 11th, Car Rental Chiang Mai, which offered the Airports of Thailand (AOT) 1,560,000 baht per month for the right, won the bid and began its operations on the 1st October.
Jed Yod Brother came in second at over 800,000 baht. In last place, was NakornLanna, with its bid of just over 550,000 baht. However, Singhkam has refused to admit defeat and gathered a group of taxi drivers to the airport to block all taxis under contract with Car Rental Chiang Mai, threatening to revoke all of their taxi license plates.
According to AOT, all taxis are allowed to come and go from the airport, however, only those who work with the company with the winning concession are allowed to park there and manage the taxi line service.
Car Rental Chiang Mai has 160 taxis under its management and has said that this act by NakornLanna is against the Land Traffic Act, as they have no right to remove the member taxis’ license plates.
The army and police turned up after a tense standoff and dispersed Singhkam’s NakornLanna group.
Citylife will follow this story closely and we hope to give you a much fuller report in the magazine next month when we have learned more.