“Mopa airport caters to elderly travellers, families with children, first-time visitors and passengers carrying heavy and multiple pieces of luggage. Many passengers take time to locate their driver, load bags and settle in. International arrivals take even longer due to immigration and baggage delays. These are routine realities, not exceptional circumstances.
What makes the policy even harder to defend is the airport’s own infrastructure. GMR has installed several speed breakers across internal roads to ensure safety. Speed breakers are designed to slow vehicles down. When movement is deliberately restricted for safety reasons, penalising drivers for not clearing checkpoints fast enough becomes deeply contradictory.”
The ongoing standoff between Goa’s taxi owners and GMR, the operator of Manohar International Airport at Mopa, has thrown up a question that is both serious and unavoidable. Is the airport being run on the logic of two-minute noodles rather than real-world human movement?
Taxi operators allege that GMR is charging ₹210 for two minutes of waiting and ₹420 for four minutes at airport checkpoints. The stated reason is traffic regulation. But the crux of the problem lies in the sheer impracticality of the time window imposed. How is a taxi expected to move from one point to another in two minutes at a functioning international airport?
Mopa airport caters to elderly travellers, families with children, first-time visitors and passengers carrying heavy and multiple pieces of luggage. Many passengers take time to locate their driver, load bags and settle in. International arrivals take even longer due to immigration and baggage delays. These are routine realities, not exceptional circumstances.
What makes the policy even harder to defend is the airport’s own infrastructure. GMR has installed several speed breakers across internal roads to ensure safety. Speed breakers are designed to slow vehicles down. When movement is deliberately restricted for safety reasons, penalising drivers for not clearing checkpoints fast enough becomes deeply contradictory.
Taxi drivers say they are not waiting by choice. They are responding to confirmed bookings. They have no control over delayed flights, slow baggage belts or elderly passengers who need assistance. Yet the financial burden of these delays is placed entirely on them. In many cases, the waiting fee alone can wipe out the earnings from short-distance trips.
Goa’s taxi economy operates differently from many other states. App-based aggregators have a limited presence, and most taxis are owned and driven by locals. Mopa airport was expected to expand opportunities for these drivers, especially from North Goa. Instead, they now feel priced out of the airport ecosystem itself.
The knock-on effects are already visible. To avoid charges, taxis keep circling the airport, increasing fuel consumption, congestion and emissions. Others pass the cost on to passengers, making airport transfers more expensive and reinforcing the perception that Goa is costly and inconvenient for visitors.
GMR argues that the waiting fees are necessary to manage traffic flow. Regulation, however, must be grounded in practicality. Airports across India and abroad typically allow a free waiting period of 10 to 15 minutes, acknowledging the unpredictability of passenger movement. A two-minute window, particularly in an airport lined with speed breakers, feels less like management and more like entrapment.
The state government’s silence only deepens the problem. Airports may be privately operated, but they serve a public purpose. Transport livelihoods are not negotiable footnotes. When thousands of local drivers are affected, government mediation becomes essential.
What is missing is consultation. Taxi unions say the policy was imposed without dialogue. Had drivers been consulted, the impossibility of the two-minute rule would have been evident from the outset. Policies framed without ground-level input rarely survive contact with reality.
The issue is still solvable. A humane waiting policy, a reasonable free grace period and rational charges can ensure smooth traffic without punishing those who keep it moving. Clear signage, designated holding areas and better coordination can achieve efficiency without hostility.
An international airport cannot function on instant noodle timelines. Human movement does not follow stopwatch logic. Until that is acknowledged, Mopa risks becoming an example of how infrastructure can lose touch with the people it is meant to serve.
