At least six taxi and limo drivers working out of Pearson International Airport have now died after testing positive for COVID-19, a union representative confirms.
Rajinder Aujla, who is the president of the Airport Limo Association, tells CP24 that 10 of his drivers have died since the outset of the pandemic. Of those people, he said that six of them had confirmed cases of COVID-19 while the cause of death for the others remains unconfirmed.
“Everybody is very fearful right now,” he said. “Everyone is scared at what is going to happen and what happened. Most people are angry.”
The Greater Toronto Airports Authority has previously taken several safety measures to help protect the drivers still working at Pearson during the pandemic, including the disinfecting of all limos and taxis before each trip.
They have also handed out 6,000 disposable gloves to drivers and amended their policies so that licence holders aren’t required to provide continuous service to the airport.
Aujla, however, told CP24 that not enough was done in the early days of the pandemic to protect drivers, something that he said his members are now paying the price for.
“The proper information wasn’t delivered about how to protect ourselves,” he said. “There was no education where with most workplaces those things were applied and people are safe.”
At this point it remains unclear whether the drivers picked up the virus on the job, though several limo and taxi drivers that spoke to CP24 on Wednesday conceded that being exposed to COVID-19 was constant concern back in March, when most cases were still being traced back to international travel.
“I am an airport driver but I stopped driving at the end of March, it was just getting too risky,” Charanjit Saini said. “Last customer I picked up they were four people and I asked them where they were coming from and they said France, which was a hotspot at the time. They told me they were going to isolate themselves but they were sitting right beside me.”
Saini said that he is personally aware of two limo drivers who have died from COVID-19 just in the last week.
He said that both of them had worked until late March before falling ill and spending “three or four” weeks in hospital on ventilators.
In a statement provided to CP24 on Wednesday, the GTAA expressed its “deepest sympathies” to the family and friends of all those who have passed away from COVID-19 but stressed that it is doing what it can to protect drivers.
“With respect to the taxi and limo community at Toronto Pearson, we have been working closely with their industry representatives, the Consultative Committee on Taxis and Limos (CCTL), to address concerns regarding COVID-19,” the statement notes. “The CCTL met most recently last week to discuss the industry and specifically to discuss driver health and safety, which is the responsibility of the CCTL.”
There are usually more than 600 limos and taxis that serve Pearson International Airport but on Wednesday CP24’s cameras captured fewer than half a dozen waiting to pick up travellers.
