Taxis are waiting at Orly airport in August 2020. -

JP PARIENTE / SIPA

  • The coronavirus has severely weakened the tourism sector.

  • Taxis and VTCs are victims of this drying up of travelers.

  • Their turnover has plunged since confinement.

Boulevard Vaugirard, in Paris.

Over several hundred meters, a long column of taxis waiting in single file in front of the entrance to Montparnasse station, waiting for rare travelers.

"Before the containment and the Covid-19 epidemic, we waited between 15 and 20 minutes to have a race," explains a driver.

But in recent months, it takes more than an hour ”.

Like many other professions, taxis and VTCs have taken the full brunt of the epidemic.

The sector is far from being anecdotal: around 18,000 taxis and 20,000 VTCs operate in and around the capital.

For months, foreign tourists did not come, blocked by the many health restrictions imposed around the world and the shutdown of air traffic.

Reservations still far from normal

And when they were able to come, they preferred the great outdoors to the metropolises.

At the beginning of August, Ile-de-France thus showed a deficit of 16 million travelers compared to last year.

"Paris has also lost its business clientele" noted Didier Arino, managing director of the Protourisme firm this summer, due to the cancellation of numerous seminars and exhibitions.

All this weighs on the turnover of taxis and VTCs.

At Uber, a spokesperson confirms to

20 Minutes

that activity is far from being back to normal: “The level of gross travel bookings (turnover) in France has recovered to reach around 70 % of its pre-Covid level.

The level of reservations to French airports has returned to around 40% of its pre-Covid level.

"

Faced with these catastrophic figures, the government decided to include taxis and VTC in the “tourism plan” presented in June.

In particular, it provides for an exemption from the payment of social contributions over the period between March and June 2020. A real relief for the profession, even if the outlook remains very uncertain.

"Between three and four races per day"

In Montparnasse, taxi drivers are indeed quite fatalistic.

“It's clearly my worst comeback,” says Amokrane, who has been practicing since 2012. Like many of his colleagues, he has fallen back on the stations where most of his activity is now concentrated.

While waiting for a hypothetical customer to arrive, Amokrane searches in his door and grabs a small notebook in which he writes down his number of journeys daily: “Last year, at the same time, I was doing between 15 and 17 errands per day.

At the moment it is rather between three and four ”.

When we talk to him about the future, he shows himself to be a philosopher: “I am a tenant driver, so I don't have a license to reimburse.

And then I have my truck license, so I can always change if I ever hit rock bottom ”.

Also a taxi driver, Zephir also has a plan B in case of a big galley.

“If it continues like this for a few more months, I will resume my old job in the building industry,” he confides.

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  • Vtc

  • Covid 19

  • Taxi

  • Coronavirus

  • Paris

  • Economy