OREANDA-NEWS. March 01, 2010. Vilnius International Airport (VIA) applied to the Competition Council of the Republic of Lithuania with a request to evaluate the TAXI prices offered to clients at Vilnius Airport, reported the press-centre of VIA.

The application is presented by VIA to the Competition Council to evaluate the situation of the prices for taxi services at the Airport. 

"I hope that the Council shall evaluate the information submitted and present their conclusions", the General Manager of VIA, Tomas Vaisvila, says. "The Airport is the gate to the city and the country, and arrival by taxi through it, allows facing the sphere of city services for the first time. We do not want this acquaintance to leave unpleasant feelings, including taxi prices, for guests. We are suspicious about the taxi rates that are several times higher than those in the city".

Until October last year, the services at the Airport were rendered by the sole company of Vilnius city, "Martono taksi". As the agreement was to an end, VIA invited all taxi companies of the city to work at the entrance of the arrival terminal of the Airport.

After a tender, the agreements were signed with 3 companies, UAB "Pigus taksi", UAB "Merselita", and UAB "Martono taksi". In the meantime, the average rate of the service is 6 LTL per kilometer, plus a 9 LTL single fee. 

According to Mr. Vaisvila, the survey of passengers says that more than 26 per cent of customers of the Airport use taxi services, and it amount to more than 350 thousand customers per year.  According to VIA calculations, the service must be several times cheaper having this flow of passengers.

The Airport, suspecting the reasons for such high rates, met these companies this week and asked to explain the rates. According to VIA, the responses of the companies were not comprehensive and did not support the fare rates.