A ride to the Saskatoon airport could cost residents a little extra.
The standing policy committee on transportation will have a report brought forward on Tuesday asking for the airport’s commercial curb fee that is charged to taxi services to be included in taxi fare to help address high operating costs.
The fee came after a dedicated commercial curb was made for taxis at the airport in 2019 to help with the transportation of passengers.
The money helps in the development, maintenance and enforcement of the curb.
A bylaw prevents that fee, which is currently $2 per trip, from being added to metered taxi fare, but not the flat rate fare.
Administration is recommending for that fee to be included in metered fare as well.
CJ Dushinski, vice-president of business development and service quality for Skyxe, says the fee is competitive with other airports, and that Uber drivers also pay that fee.
“I think the reason that it’s going before city council is that we’ve been kind of working with the city since the implementation of the trip fee since 2019, just to make sure things are consistent and transparent for all of our passengers and users, and taxi drivers and operators,” Dushinski said.
Matt Grazier, director of community standards with the city, says taxi operators have seen a number of rises in operational costs over the past few years, and passing on this fee to customers is a small step in alleviating some of those costs.
“Out of the six or seven cities we looked at, we did find this being very common practice for other cities and their airports,” Grazier said.
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