Halting Start to Airport Taxi Switch

The first new taxi company in four years to hold the exclusive franchise serving John Wayne Airport made its debut Thursday to mixed reviews from travelers, many of whom said they had their first-ever wait for a cab there.

“I don’t see one anywhere,” said Paul McCranie, a computer network salesman from Portland who visits Orange County on business every couple of months. Squinting in the sun at a stream of traffic through the terminal, McCranie, 39, glanced at his watch. “It’s never, ever like this. Here I’ve only waited six minutes and I’m telling you, I feel like this is a wait.”

The new company--Santa Ana-based American Taxi, whose cars use cleaner-burning natural gas--began exclusive airport service Wednesday night. The company was called into service a week earlier than planned because county airport officials terminated the contract of the previous company, A Taxi Cab, for failing to provide a state certificate of insurance.

American Taxi owner Rick Schorling said the earlier switch-over caught him by surprise, and the company tried to rush the required registration and inspection process for about 50 new cabs.

Schorling said he had planned to have 80 cabs ready to roll by April 1, the original switch-over date. But when the airport director, Alan L. Murphy, denied a new contract to A Taxi Cab and delivered letters of termination to its drivers on Wednesday evening, Schorling said he had only about 30 of the required 70 cabs ready.

The new company sent what it had available and found three of the former company’s cabs abandoned at the taxi exit of the airport, blocking Schorling’s fleet and forcing a detour for picking up passengers.

The abandoned cabs were impounded and towed away.

“We’ve done the best we can under the circumstances,” said Schorling, who recorded nearly 400 trips between 6:20 and 10 p.m. Wednesday. “The longest wait has been 12 minutes, and there haven’t been that many of those. It’s only going to get better.”

Hoping to keep patrons comfortable as they waited at the taxi stand Thursday, airport officials set up chairs by the curb and served water. Airport spokeswoman Nghia Nguyen said the lines--which at one point swelled to 20 people--thinned out as the day went on and more cabs were added to the fleet.

“It isn’t that the wait has been so bad,” Nguyen said Thursday. “It’s just that people aren’t used to waiting here at all.”

Several patrons, however, were amused by the airport’s efforts.

“I just came from Chicago,” said Celeste Birong, 25, as she flipped through a magazine and waited for a lift to a relative’s house in Irvine. “Believe me, this is nothing.”

A Day When Demand Was High

Schorling said the waits on Thursday may have been compounded by the number of visitors arriving for a convention in Anaheim. More than half of the taxi customers were headed there, he said.

“It was the worst possible time to begin,” he said. “It would have been a challenging day for any [cab company], understaffed or not.”

At least 72 cabs are expected to be in service at the airport by today, with 130 running by Monday or Tuesday, Schorling said. The contract requires 120 cabs during peak hours and on holidays.

American Taxi’s fleet is the nation’s first to run strictly on natural gas, which is considered cleaner-burning and was a key factor in the county’s choosing it for John Wayne.

The red and white Ford Crown Victorias look no different from their gasoline-powered counterparts except for the words “Clean Air Taxi” emblazoned on the sides. A few customers noticed the words immediately, and began quizzing their drivers about it.

“It makes people feel good about the cab, I think,” one driver said as he put his taxi in gear and pulled away.

The previous company, A Taxi Cab, had the exclusive contract since 1996. County supervisors this week rejected the company’s bid for a new contract, citing questions raised about the insurance certificate.

Officials with that company have said that it was covered by a $2-million insurance policy and that the county never requested a certificate of insurance from the state. A spokesman for A Taxi Cab said the company is considering its legal options.