Budget Airport Taxis | Glasgow Airport

BLOG & UPDATES | BUDGET AIRPORT TAXIS

BUDGET AIRPORT TAXIS UPDATES

This is our blog/updates page which will show anything we feel is relevant to our business and our site visitors. We will be changing our updates page over to a blog page where we will continue to update customers with any relevant information

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JAN 2024 PRICING UPDATE

We had to go ahead and update our pricing again from Jan 2024 onwards. This has been a challenging time and with continued cost pressures we felt there was no choice but to increase our prices again. We are still confident we can provide great value for money and we are still offering our discount offers to customers. Our new 2024 prices can be found by clicking through to our pricing page.

We continue to value our customers service and hope to see you all through the course of 2024.

Regards

Budget Airport Taxis

COVID-19 UPDATE

Budget Airport Taxis would like to ensure customers that we will do our best to keep you moving during this crisis. In line with government recommendations we are currently running a normal service with additional precautions. We are still available to provide all types transfers services as before.

However if possible we will be asking customers to travel in the back seat unless they are unable to do so. We are still catering for groups of up to 4 per vehicle. However when groups are smaller we would request this precaution to maintain spacing within the vehicle. We would ask all passengers to adhere to the recommendations set out by the UK government when travelling with us.

As per government recommendations drivers and passengers will be required to wear face coverings unless unable to do so due to medical conditions etc. Our vehicles will also be kept as clean as possible inside and out and will be disinfected on a daily basis. If we are transporting multiple groups then vehicles will be disinfected multiple times per day.

If any further information, assistance or requests about our services during this time are required please feel free to contact us using our contact details below. We will be more than happy to assist anyone with any queries that they have.

We thank all customers and users of our website for their patience at this time. We would also like to extend our well wishes to everyone and hope that you and your families remain safe at this difficult time.

Thanks

15/05/2022 Airport Transfer Update – Prices

So many will remember I mentioned a couple of months back about keeping our prices in review. Unfortunately we have had to make the difficult decision to now increase of prices due to rising costs. The biggest rise by far is in the cost of fuel which is now 20% higher than it was in November when we applied our annual increase. Add to this the cost of living rises and we feel it is now time to try to protect the income of our drivers.

Increasing prices is always a difficult decision for us as the core of our business model is to bring budget priced transport to everyone. We have to strike a difficult balance between great value but also maintaining our income levels. Our price increase will go ahead at a rate of 10p per mile and will take effect from MONDAY 23RD MAY 2022. Once I have sorted through the prices I will post them here for customer information prior to them becoming active.

We thank all our customers and supporters for continuing to use and back us through 2022 and beyond. We look forward to welcoming you aboard our service in the future. Of course as always, if anyone has any question please feel free to contact us at any time.

Thanks

Budget Airport Taxis

23/03/2022 Airport Transfer Update – The General Situation

So its been about 4 weeks since our last quick update and I’m happy to say things have picked up. However, with the current climate of Russia/Ukraine being at war and Covid on the rise again then who knows how long this will last. Hopefully these are all things we can ride out and they do not place too much pressure on the industry.

Of course now we also have the current fuel situation, driven in part by the Russia/Ukraine war and part by greedy fuel speculation. Any way we will do our best to get through the current situation and move onwards and upwards as we always try to do.

Companies Within the Industry & Safe Booking

So this is something I feel we should mention a little bit on and help provide some guidance to people looking to use a taxi transfer company. This is useful information across the board and is something that may help when choosing a company for other types of services.

So we have been hearing some reports of really bad service recently from customers who have been let down by other companies. Now I wouldn’t go as far as naming any of these companies here as it is not great business practice to get in to a war of words with competitors. Also we can all have a bad day when providing our airport taxi service to members of the public.

Now for us we feel it is important to point out that not all airport transfer companies run licensed vehicles. Some operate as a chauffeur and this may well be to provide these kinds of services however we would always recommend that customers stick with a licensed operator. Many operators also provide licensed executive travel options so it is worth shopping around.

Here we target the area of providing reliable, save and great value transfers so it is not really practically in a business sense for us to operate big fancy vehicles. Most transfer companies do operate via a licensed system and lets remember this is in place for a reason. Being licensed through local authorities means your operator, which in this case is ourselves, Budget Airport Taxis has to adhere to conditions and rules set out by councils. All licensed vehicles are licensed under the Civic Government of Scotland Act. This gives provisions for the drivers who operate the vehicles and the vehicles themselves, which are regularly test by local councils.

This is an area that could really be covered very in depth but I don’t really want to bore people to death. My reason for typing this little update is so that people can make an informed and safe choice when choosing someone for their service. So I will go ahead and provide some points below as a guide with our top tips for staying safe and ensuring your are provided with a reliable service.

Our tips and pointers when looking at companies to supply you a service

  1. When booking online or over the phone the identity and credentials of companies are not always apparent. Ensure you know who you are booking with and that they are a reputable company. Things that can help you with knowing who it is are recommendations from friends, knowing the person or company first hand and having had contact with them previously. Other great things to look out for is when their business was established. This can be seen on many business profiles and especially on google, which tells customers how long a business has had its google my business listing for. Check our reviews of any company you are considering to use and allow these to help you make an informed choice.
  2. Licensed operators must provide customers with their license details upon request. It is standard practice for details of council driving licenses and operating licenses (plate on the car) to be displayed at all times. If this is not the case and you want to see this information please request it from your driver
  3. Whoever you are dealing with please ensure you know their operating address. We have seen may companies recently who display no operating address or have it vaguely identified as Kilwinning, Irvine, Glasgow etc. It is a legal requirement of companies to provide their operating address and where they operate a licensed service from.
  4. If you book with a company please ensure if you pay in advance that you use a credit or debit card. This means that in the case of someone not showing up your are able to claim that money back through your bank or credit card provider. It is also always best to check if the company also has a refund and cancellation policy.

Regardless of any company you use we hope people will use this information provided to help them make an informed decision on who they use to transport them to and from Glasgow Airport!

Our own situation with regards to reputation, business practice and licensing

  1. We have a good and solid 6 years history of providing our transport services to and from Glasgow Airport. We grow much of our long term business based on reputation and as a result many of our customers have been with us for years. Our operating address is listed on all our business listing and at the bottom of this website along with our contact information. We have reviews of our business listed across many reputable review sites our main one being google.
  2. As with ourselves all drivers are instructed to provide customers with any license details required. Here at Budget Airport Taxis we can notify customers of the driver and vehicle details before arrival. This can, if necessary include all relevant licensing information, just let us know if you wish more detailed information at the time of booking. Also all our vehicles are tested as per our licensed local authorities test procedures to ensure customer safety. All of our vehicles are licensed by Renfrewshire Council for the purpose of providing licensed public service. The reason for our licenses being under Renfrewshire Council are 1) This is where I previously lived, operated and got to know fellow drivers when I first opened my business. 2) We specifically provide tailored and bespoke transfer solutions to and from Glasgow Airport, which is within the local authority boundary of Renfrewshire Council.
  3. Here at Budget Airport Taxis my personal licenses are held at my stated business address of 24 Cloncaird, Kilwinning, North Ayrshire KA13 6LT. We have other drivers who operate in association with myself on a sub contracted basis and their licenses will be at a different addresses and in different areas. These license details are checked by us before we undertake the placing of any sub contracted work with these drivers ensure the safety of our customers. Customer safety for us is paramount and we are always as open as possible when it comes to our own licensing.
  4. We accept various forms of payment and are flexible to what suits our customers best. We can accept bank transfers but encourage customers to ensure they have used us and trust us before using this method. Credit and debit card transactions via our online booking portal are handled by Stripe and in car payments in both of my own personal licensed vehicles are via SumUp. Other operators sub contracting to us may use other providers. We have a cancellation policy in regards to advanced payments and this can be found here.

Budget Airport Taxis February 2022 Update

So we are now well in to the new year and the holiday season bookings are starting to trickle in. At the moment we realise it is still a tough time for travelling due to covid and other financial pressures. We would like to ensure all our customers that we are still hear ready to go when you are.

The last couple of years have been tough for us here at Budget Airport Taxis. However through the generous support of the UK and Scottish governments and the continued support of our customers we have survived. We hope to be providing airport transfer services to Ayrshire and the wider community for many years to come.

Currently our booking system is working well and we have found it to be very good in the most part. Now and again there is small glitches appear but most are fixed very quickly. Currently we are hearing reports of existing customers having trouble logging in. We have checked this and it appears to be an issue with customers inputting their mobile numbers on the login page. If your number has been logged correctly then it should work perfectly. The system accepts numbers in standard and international format with the + country code in front of it. However if you are having any issues please get in touch as we can modify booking, customer accounts and many other processes manually on our end.

Budget Airport Taxis September 2021 Update

NEW TREE PLANTING PROMOTION

Here at Budget Airport Taxis we a conscious about our impact upon the planet. As a result we have opened an account with (more:trees) where we are able to plant trees on behalf of customers. We realise that this is a small gesture in the grant scheme of things but we believe that every little bit helps. This will allow us to help offset some of the carbon produced from the airport transfers we provide.

Currently more trees are running projects in Madagascar, Kenya and Haiti. Each tree planted removes an estimated 0.3 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This is equivalent to 732.90 miles in a standard family car. From these figures it is clear that one tree is more than enough to cover the carbon dioxide produced on the majority of the journeys we provide.

All customers need to do to receive confirmation of their tree is to leave us an email address when booking. All journeys worth £37 or more from 06/09/21 will be entitled to a free tree until further notice. The email address will allow more trees to email you directly with notification of your tree being planted. Alternatively we can text you with details when your tree has been purchased.

We hope customers will agree with us that this is a great way to offset our carbon dioxide emissions while helping the wider environment. If anyone has any further questions regarding this please feel free to use the contact details above to contact us.

Thanks

Budget Airport Taxis

OUR BOOKING SYSTEM IS WORKING WELL

Our new booking system and booking apps have been up and running for around 5 months now. We hope customers have been finding it easier to use the new tools we have provided for booking with us. Currently the system is 100% operational and is working well and also has an uptime of 99.9% allowing for very little disruption in the booking process.

If for any reason a glitch or a problem is found please feel free to contact us and let us know on the details above. We can then arrange to have support look in to it and for your booking to be taken manually.

Thanks

Budget Airport Taxis

Budget Airport Taxis April 2021 Update

*****NEW BOOKING SYSTEM AND APPS ON THE WAY*****

We are currently in the process of setting up and building an online booking database. This will give us the ability to offer a solid online booking experience. It will also allow us to provide all of our set priced routes as well as booking for all other areas. Customers will also be able to register accounts to help store data from their trips. 

The system we are going to use requires all information to be entered by us due to cost and programming constrains. This means it is time intensive to enter all the data necessary to provide the service. We have been putting it together ourselves in our spare time and testing over the last two weeks. We feel we are fairly close to being able to offer it for live bookings. 

Please keep an eye out for it going live in the next few days. We will also need to take some time to integrate it in to the current format of the website. We may need to make some changes to the website or write additional page content to offer the system. We also have a need to write instructions to allow our customers a clear and concise experience. 

The new booking system will bring with it a new customer app and a driver app. This will also customers the ability to fully track and to contact their drivers from within the app. The apps will be available on Android, iOS and will come as a web app experience too. 

Initially we will have to go through a period to iron bugs out but with the testing we have done we hope this will be minimal. Once you have booked with the online booking system you will receive an email and/or text message about your journey. If you book on the apps, you will receive notification through the app itself. We will have an update with further explanation posted to our updates page later today. 

The system we are using is provided by Gazoop and is a cost-effective option for start-ups and small enterprises. This is a perfect opportunity for us and provides a great stepping stone towards the future for us. Gazoop also has the ability to be able to grow with fleet sizes and although we don’t intend on major expansion it provides options for the future. 

Gazoop was something we looked at in the past along with Taxicaller and zoom. For us Gazoop was still in its infancy and had a lot of issue that required ironed out but they seem to have progressed well. As for Taxicaller and zoom, both are great systems but have a high outlay for whitelabel apps for a small enterprise. 

We selected Gazoop because although they run a non whitelabel shared app model like other companies, where multiple companies can technically be registered to a customer’s app it works better for us. Taxi caller offered an online system where customers could search for a trip but it offered all businesses on the platform. This for us leads companies like ourselves feeling forced to lower prices to compete with other providers. Couple this to being charged for the service I felt we were in a position of being charged to discount to catch customers attention. 

I much prefer to have a settled pricing system where I feel we are the most competitive and cost effective because our service history backs this up. It also still allows me to provide our pricing guarantee where any customer finds a cheaper price, we will still beat it. It is a far better situation for us to do this on a job-by-job basis than have our whole system programmed to a constantly low pricing structure where service might suffer. 

Over the next few days customers will see some changes on the website. Nothing to significant but we will be replacing our booking form with the Gazoop form and customers can switch to booking here. Cash and Card options will be offered through the booking portal.  

We will also add a page with instructions on how to set up the app if customers are looking to download that. It is a system where the customer must download the app from one of the app stores then scan our personal QR code to save our business in the app screen. It is not really a difficult system but we think best to provide clarity to save any confusion. 

We will also be providing links on the pages to the app stores for customers to download the apps. We will continue to keep our contact for on the contact page and may place it elsewhere on the site. However, the forms are JavaScript intensive and can slow the site down so we will have to test the options on other pages before we decide on this for sure. All other contact methods remain unchanged and customers can still call, text or email us if they wish to do so. 

Budget Airport Taxis December 2020 Update

So at the moment we do not have to much to update. We hope all our customers and their families are staying safe during this coronavirus pandemic. We hope you have all had as good a Christmas as can be expected at this challenging time? We look forward to an improved situation in 2021 and wish all our customers a good new year when it arrives.

Glasgow Airport has taken the opportunity to increase drop off and pick up charges to £4 from £2. This change was implemented on the 4th December 2020 and is out of our hands. Unfortunately we are required, unless we wish to risk a fine, to drop off and pick up at the dedicated area. We urge anyone unhappy regarding this to contact the airport directly with their views.

We were thinking of increasing prices slightly in line with inflation this new year. However due to the current financial climate we will be holding our current fares until at least the summer of 2021. The only exception to this is for the pick up and drop off charges and the meet and greet charge.

We thank all our customers and website visitors for their continued support in to 2021

Budget Airport Taxis January 2020 Update

Currently we have opted to update some of our prices and these have been updated on our pricing page. There is no major pricing update at this time and the increase has only affected a selected small number of routes. The reason for this is mainly to take in to account small changes in the original mileage estimates used to price the routes. It also takes in to account the added time it take. to travel some other selected routes mainly those in rural areas.

The only other update we have at the moment is the addition of web pages providing coverage for some of our most popular routes. This allows us to provide target information for these areas showcasing our services on a more local level.

Further to these updates we are aware of issues with our site being unavailable at points. This seems to be limited to early mornings and is currently being investigated by our hosting provider. We may need to move to another provider but this would be a seamless operation and can be completed within an hour. This would prevent unnecessary down time for the website and prevent customer inconvenience. If we have to explore this option we would add an update at a later date to let our users know.

May 2019 Update

Sister Website Launch

We have now launched our sister website Budget Airport Private Hire. We launched it as a one page website under construction page last month. We have now worked on it and updates different aspects of the site to provide more information on our services. Primarily both websites will do the same job but will have differing content on them allowing us an opportunity to reach more potential customers.

At the moment we are doing well but with one eye on the future and the further expansion of our business both websites will allow us to target a wider range or areas. Primarily our main source of business is online with a little bit of advertising but the lunch of this new site allows us to continue our focus online. We believe that the internet is a powerful tool and along with traditional advertising and publicity a new website allows us to focus our attention on expanding to a wider online audience. We never really know what the future holds for us but as they say “nothing ventured, nothing gained”.

April 2019 Update

Booking System Update

Following continued problems with our booking system we have switched back to our previous system. We are back using our simple online booking form which will notify us when someone has sent a booking request. We will then get back to customers as soon as we can but usually this will be within 2 hours.

SSL Certificate

Once again we have opted to purchase an SSL certificate for the next two years instead of one. The security of our customers information is of the utmost importance to us. Even though our booking system has reverted back to the old system and we no longer take card payment through the website we still believe a certificate is worth while.

It continues to provide the security encryption required to protect customers details when they are entered online. This means anything that is sent to us whether it be a name and address or credit card details in the future will all be securely encrypted. If you wish to view our SSL certificate information please click on the padlock at the top of your browser if you are on a desktop.

January 2019 Update

Our new prices are now live as of 1st of January 2019. To view our updated prices please head over to our prices page.

 New Service Introduced

We have now introduced our new accompanied tours service with an aim of making it easier for people to see Scotland especially if they are on a tight schedule. The new service targets those who are coming to Scotland or other parts of the UK via Glasgow Airport.

The new service will consist on a driver and his/her vehicle being available to the party who use the service for a prearranged period while they stay in the UK. The service basically works by allowing people to book a car and driver for their transport needs while here in the UK.

The driver will transport the customers based on a route provided or agreed upon before their arrival. The driver will be with the customer for the whole period and will offer a tailored transport solution to customers who do not wish to spend time booking hire cars, buses, trains etc. The customer will either send us their required route and stop offs or they can submit to us where they wish to go. From here we will arrange or suggest the most appropriate routes and stops based on the information provided.

This will result in the customers and driver travelling over a planned route where the customer can stop at attractions, take photographs and will be taken to their choice of accommodation. It will allow customers who are especially short of time to book a car for one, two, three or in some cases more than 3 days.

Over these days the driver will take the customer where they wish to go and will also stop over night in the areas with the customers too. However our drivers may not be accommodated in the same accommodation due to prices unless the customer specifically requests this. If further information for this service is required then please feel free to contact us via our contact form with all the details for your trip so we can put a route map together along with a price.

May 2018 Update

Car Park 2 Pick Up and Drop Off

Glasgow Airport have once again changed the parking arrangement for car park 2. Zone D, which is our preferred meeting point has now been marked out with 1H parking bays and the £2 for 10 min pick up has now been removed. The minimum cost is now £3 for 20 min minimum.

To avoid an increase of £1 in our prices we will now be picking up zones A and B (Red and Blue) as this area is still £2 for 10 min pick up time.

Alternatively customers can still be picked up and dropped off at Zone D but an additional £1 each way will be added to the cost of the journey.

Meet and Greet service can still be provided as before and the cost for this still remains the same at £6.

Budget Airport Taxis April 2018 Update

Privacy Policy and GDPR Compliance

We have now put together and published our privacy policy which accounts for the EU’s new GDPR legislation related to privacy. This legislation is important and after Brexit the legislation will still be contained in British statue. As a result it will still apply to all areas where customers share data. This means everywhere consumer information is collected or processed there has to be appropriate policies in place.

This means companies should be protecting customer data at every opportunity as securely as possible. We are in the process of auditing to ensure we can comply with this legislation. We do not share customer data with third parties except those we subcontract to provide transport on our behalf.

Please feel free to check back for updates on a regular basis. Please remember this legislation is due to become law on the 25th May 2018.

Further information is available by searching through google for GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). Alternatively you can click this link to the Information Commissioner’s Office which provides further information on this change.

Live Bookings

Following the addition of our SSL certificate to our site we have now been able to bring a new booking widget to our bookings page. This will allow customers to book directly to our system with real-time availability and card payments handled via Stripe. At the moment we will be using it for a trial period to see if it is suitable and to check its functionality.