More than 5,000 registered taxi drivers took passengers on about 3 million trips from Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport last year, but only about two people a day on average complained.
Weerasak Kowsurat, chairman of the Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau (TCEB), said on Thursday that 5,328 taxi drivers registered to serve Suvarnabhumi and picked up incoming passengers about 3 million times. For those trips, passengers' complaints accounted for 0.024%, he said. That amounts to about 720 grievances, just less than two per day.
Weerasak Kowsurat, chairman of the Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau
Apart from complaints, management at Suvarnabhumi also recorded cases in which taxi drivers returned passengers' forgotten belongings on their own. Good-news stories were recorded every month and numbered 11-26 cases monthly, Mr Weerasak said.
"This should be reported to boost the morale of the people who do good deeds. I pay attention to this because most visitors for meetings, conferences and exhibitions go to town in taxis," he said.
To promote good taxi services, he suggested authorities organise regular training sessions, plus provide allowances for taxi drivers, award those with good public-service records, protect them from employer abuse and offer welfare to their families.
Last year there were 713 cases of taxi drivers being punished for bad behaviour with arriving passengers, Mr Weerasak said. Their offences included refusing to use fare meters, being rude, rejecting passengers, using modified fare meters, taking passengers on unusually long routes, driving unsafely, and leaving passengers before they reached their destination.