Yellow taxi drivers said that they have been bearing the brunt of comprehensive lockdowns and night curfew since the outbreak of the coronavirus crisis in March.

A taxi driver and an owner of a yellow taxi office urged the government to reconsider the night curfew and cancel the recently re-imposed comprehensive lockdown on Fridays in Amman and Zarqa. 

Hamzah Khreisat, owner of a taxi office in Zarqa, told The Jordan Times that the workload dropped by over 50 per cent since the beginning of the crisis.

He noted that "the sector had already struggled with numerous issues prior to the crisis and matters have only gotten worse since March”. 

"While the Land and Transport Regulatory Commission decided to cut the licensing fees for each taxi by half from JD200 to JD100, which is great, still there is barely any work with the curfews and the recent lockdown, so we are still struggling,” Khreisat told The Jordan Times over the phone on Monday.

"The economic conditions are getting worse, I even have drivers with engineering certificates. Now even in this sector they can barely make it with all the operational costs they have to bear,” he said.

Khreisat added that maintenance fees and fuel costs are "mounting”, leaving current drivers unable to make a profit. 

A taxi driver in Zarqa, who preferred to remain anonymous, told The Jordan Times that they used to make around JD20 each day, but now they would go home with JD10 or less as a result of the curfew.

"The two consecutive comprehensive lockdowns on Fridays have affected us. We also used to work until after midnight, but now at 11pm we have to be home and cannot work anymore,” he noted, hoping that no more lockdowns will take place in the upcoming weekends.