SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - One angry cab driver not only wants to have the fee for parking at the airport abolished - he wants to be reimbursed.

In a letter to Yellowknife MLAs, signed by 32 cabbies from both City Cabs and Diamond Cabs, taxi driver Vaughn del Valle asked that fees at the airport be eliminated and re-payed.

Currently both City Cabs and Diamond cabs each pay the Department of Transportation $15,000 a year for the right to operate at the airport, where there is room for about eight cabs to park right outside the terminal, and several more spaces closer to the highway.

Del Valle, who drives for Diamond Cabs, said this results in company drivers having to pay $10 a week to the company to cover the fee, on top of the $250 a week they already pay in rent for stands throughout the city.

In the letter he also asked that the first-come, first-serve system to take customers be scrapped in favour of a "salt and pepper" approach, meaning the front of a taxi queue will alternate between one company then the other.

Earl Blacklock, spokesperson for the transportation department, said the fee amounts are assessed by looking at comparable airports in the rest of the country.

"For example Regina, I think there's a $40,000 charge for taxi services," he said.

The fees contribute towards maintaining the airport, he said.

He said both cab companies agreed to a first-come, first-serve agreement, rather than a salt and pepper agreement. "Both companies are treated exactly the same," he said. "Some drivers from the smaller company (Diamond) want to go to an approach that would favour them."

However, del Valle said before Diamond Cabs had a contract at the airport, City Cabs payed $15,000 for all airport parking spots, which it now shares with Diamond Cabs while both companies pay $15,000 each.

Blacklock said City Cabs agreed to renew their contract anyway, which shows they were happy with the arrangement.

"There is a fee that is payable, and City Cabs considered that fee reasonable," he said.

City Cabs manager Nelson Muchekeni said he thinks the fee is fair, adding the companies are being charged to park at the airport, not to pick up and drop off customers.

"If you are picking up a friend you don't need a special space to park, but their are spaces reserved just for taxis," he said.

"If you parked in our spaces we would ask you to please move, so why should we not pay for that?"

Del Valle thinks the charges are a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

"Outside of the Third World or the long arm of the mafia, I can't think of any other circumstance anywhere in the world where an employee or a company has to make a payoff to do their job," he said.

Wendy Bisaro, MLA for Frame Lake, received del Valle's letter and took it upon herself to pass it on to Transportation Minister Michael McLeod.

"By the time I got to it, nobody had replied to it, so I forwarded it to the Minister of Transportation," she said.

"Hopefully we will have a letter to Mr. del Valle soon. What 'soon' means in government language, I'm not sure."

In Whitehorse there are no charges for taxis to operate at the airport, and according to Jennifer Magnuson, spokesperson for the Department of Highways and Public Works with the Government of Yukon, there are no immediate plans for any.

"We do not charge our taxis any sort of fee to access the queue," she said. "It could likely change in the future but we don't see it in the near future."

Noelle March, a taxi driver at Northern Star Taxi in Whitehorse, said she had heard word of future charges, and reaction from drivers was mixed.

"There are some old-timers who just work the airport who seem to think that a fee would be a good thing because there's so much competition," she said.

"I guess it's going to depend on how much it is, and how it works, whether it's per car or per company."

Blacklock said the situation in Whitehorse had no bearing on what happened in the NWT.

"Whitehorse Airport is not subject to the NWT Airports Act - which requires us to have a licence, lease or agreement," he said. "I'm not going to comment on how another jurisdiction conducts its business."