The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority is poised to ban all D.C. taxicabs from picking up passengers at Washington-Dulles International Airport, cutting ties with a well-established Washington company and costing the District more than $1 million in tax revenue.
The authority’s 13-member board of directors, including incoming chairman H.R. Crawford, of D.C., is expected to hand three companies, two from Virginia and one from Baltimore, exclusive access to the lucrative fares leaving the Northern Virginia airport. Left out is District Cab, which has operated out of Dulles since 2000.
“If you have a D.C. company that’s been out there for seven years, why does the Washington Airports Authority choose a Baltimore company and two Virginia companies, one of which went bankrupt?” said Jeffrey Schaeffer, the firm’s vice president.
The impending move has angered and puzzled D.C. leaders, given how many tourists leave Dulles for the District. The deal, they argue, will cost District residents their jobs and an estimated $1.3 million in tax revenue over five years.
“The exclusion of a DC cab company is most unfair when this City plays the pivotal role in the tourism commerce and other visitors in the metropolitan area,” Ward 2 D.C. Council Member Jack Evans wrote in a July 2 letter to the authority.
Roughly 630 cabs currently work out of Dulles – 530 owned by Virginia’s Dulles Taxi Systems and 100 by District Cab. Under the proposed new system, three companies will split the work: Dulles Taxi Systems, Baltimore’s Veolia Transportation and Falls Church-based Dulles Airport Taxi.
Dulles Airport Taxi’s chief executive is Farouq Massoud, who ran cabs out of Dulles in the 1990s before losing the deal, suing the authority and declaring bankruptcy. Massoud said Wednesday that now “We’ve proven to the whole entire world we’re back.”
“I’m not going to look backward,” Massoud said. “I’m going to look forward.”
Crawford, the former Ward 7 D.C. Council member, said the airport board “very seldom” votes against its staff recommendation. “Of course” he favored District Cab, Crawford said, but the company’s proposal ranked fifth, with the top three being picked.
“They are very qualified and equally capable, and I am very upset,” Crawford said.
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