A black cab driver has been found dead in his taxi at Heathrow Airport and no one realised he had died for at least three days because desperate cabbies have been queuing for days without moving to collect a fare from the West London airport.
The unidentified man who was in his 50’s was said to have been found lifeless in his sleeping bag in the back of his cab. His car was parked in the middle of a long line of other cabs that have been positioned in a huge car park close to the airport where they wait for passengers.
With international traffic into Heathrow decimated by a ban on non-essential travel and ride-hailing apps like Uber biting into the remaining meagre pickings, the cab drivers have been inching towards the front of the line at a snail’s pace.
It can take days for a cab driver to get to the front of the official black cab pickup queue but many don’t see an alternative. There’s no option to temporarily leave the queue so many of the drivers have made makeshift bedrooms in the back of their cars.
Even before the pandemic, cab drivers reportedly regularly slept in their cars to get the first lucrative fares of the day but current travel restrictions mean around 150 cabs are parked up for days waiting to collect a passenger.
“Police were called shortly after 16:01hrs on Wednesday, 12 May to Newall Road, near Heathrow following reports of an unresponsive man in a car,” a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police Service said in a statement to the Daily Mail.
“Officers and London Ambulance Service attended and a man in his 50s was pronounced dead at the scene. The death is not being treated as suspicious and a file will be prepared for the coroner,” the statement continued.
A spokesperson for Heathrow airport said it was “saddened” by the tragedy.
International non-essential travel is due to restart on Monday but only 12 countries will initially be on England’s controversial quarantine-free ‘Green List’.
