The German Association of Taxi and Rental Cars fears that numerous taxi companies in Germany will not survive the corona crisis. Many have already given back their license, and by the end of this year a third of the cars will no longer be on the road. “We are assuming that there will only be around 24,000 taxis; before the pandemic there were around 36,000,” says Michael Oppermann, managing director of “Welt am Sonntag”.
SN / APA (dpa) / Stefan Sauer
A taxi sign on the roof of a car
In 2020, the industry had to cope with a 43 percent decline in sales. The income of all taxis in Germany fell from 5.4 billion euros in 2019 to 3.1 billion euros. According to the Senate Department for the Environment, Transport and Climate Protection, the pandemic hits taxis particularly hard in the German capital. In Berlin, before the start of the corona pandemic in December 2019, 8,044 vehicles were still registered, in February 2020 the city had only 6,792 concessions – a decrease of 15.6 percent. According to the report, the number of taxi concessions in Hamburg has also fallen significantly since the beginning of the pandemic, by almost ten percent.
In Austria’s cities, too, especially in Vienna, taxi companies came under great pressure due to the lack of tourists and the restrictions on public life.
