Fixing the airport

Mayor Pavel Bém told the British Chamber of Commerce two weeks ago that improvements to the taxi problem at Prague airport should be visible within a year. Further hope came yesterday, when Transport Minister Milan Šimonovský sacked Martin Kačur as CEO of the ČSL Airport Authority for accounting irregularities. As the head of ČSL, Kačur was ultimately responsible for those nasty Visa cabs that give the airport such a bad name, with their overcharging and deadly driving. Šimonovský said the sacking had nothing to do with a scandal last week over ČSL's attempt to give even more privileges to Fix s.r.o. as the monopoly "contractual transport operator," but the unwillingness of ČSL to keep something as visible as taxis under control is a sign of much deeper problems. Privatization of ČSL in a clean tender - not like the way Fix got its monopoly - seems the logical solution.