SCUFFLES BROKE out yesterday between the police and taxi drivers protesting outside the Larnaca airport.
Airport taxi drivers were staging a 24-hour warning strike over insurance and diesel prices.
Passengers without any means of transport were forced to carry their luggage to the airport roundabout in search of taxis.
It was meant to be a peaceful protest but skirmishes started after some drivers tried to block access to other taxi drivers coming to pick up passengers.
One police officer was injured and a driver was arrested in the ensuing fracas.
Another taxi driver attacked a newspaper photographer and then turned on other journalists who tried to stop him.
The officer was taken to Larnaca hospital, where he was treated for minor injuries.
The drivers’ representative Christakis Nicolaou claimed he received a blow in the abdomen.
Taxi drivers complain they are forced to seek insurance from the Joint Insurance Company, a conglomerate of 22 individual companies on the island, which provides cover for taxis and buses as well as for other high risk groups.
The drivers said it would be a peaceful demonstration but police were taking no chances in a bid to prevent a blockade of the airport.
Taxi driver Costas Matsa said they had no initial intention of blocking the road to the airport but a large police force arrived provocatively with orders from their superiors to prevent such an eventuality.
Nicolaou said they had a government letter suggesting they could insure their vehicles wherever they wanted.
He added that they have already found companies willing to insure them but they were blocked by the conglomerate.
“When the conglomerate realised what we were doing, they intervened and prevented the insurance companies from insuring the taxi drivers,” Nicolaou said.
He urged the government and parliament to intervene and enable them to disengage from the conglomerate.
This would cut their costs and drive fares down, Nicolaou said.
As a show of support, the company running services taxis across the island suspended its service to Larnaca airport at 9am.
Chairman Andreas Papadopoulos warned of the strike spreading to other services if a solution was not found soon.
He said service taxis had an even bigger problem with insurance premiums; the average premium was £792.
The director of the conglomerate Michalis Palazis noted that the company was created because individual companies refused to insure taxis due to the high risk involved.
He claimed the conglomerate had recorded £1,159,000 in damages over the past 10 years and suggested that no one could offer lower premiums.
The airport drivers also got support from their Limassol colleagues who refused to carry passengers to and from the airport.
