Terms of service

1. Who your contract is with

Your contract is with AB Airport Transfers, the licensed private hire operator that accepts your booking. That is the case whether the vehicle that arrives is driven by an employee, by a self-employed driver working with us, or by another licensed operator we have asked to cover the journey.

This is not a courtesy. Under section 56 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976, the contract for a private hire journey is treated as made with the operator that accepted the booking, whether or not that operator supplied the vehicle. So if something goes wrong with your journey, you come to us. You do not have to chase a driver.

The full registered name of the trading entity and, if it is a limited company, its registered number, will be published here and in the footer as soon as they are confirmed. We would rather show nothing than show the wrong one.

2. When a booking becomes a booking

A request is not a booking. A journey is booked when we have accepted it and given you a confirmation, either on the phone or in writing. Until then nothing is reserved.

You are responsible for the details you give us: the pickup address and postcode, the destination, the date, the time, the number of passengers and the amount of luggage. Check the confirmation when it arrives. If anything on it is wrong, tell us straight away — an incorrect address is the single most common reason a pickup fails.

How to book, change or cancel is set out in the booking and cancellation policy, which forms part of these terms.

3. Fares are fixed and quoted before you travel

We quote a fixed price for the journey before you book it. That price is what you pay. There is no meter running in the background, no surge pricing and no card fee. A £1.50 booking fee applies to every booking whatever the payment method, and the quote you are shown already includes it.

The quote covers the journey as you described it. If the journey changes — an extra stop, a different destination, more passengers than the vehicle was booked for, a significantly different pickup time — the price may change. If it does, we will tell you the new price and you can accept it or decline it before the change is made. We will not add a charge to a journey after the event without having told you.

Charges that are outside our control and specific to your journey, such as a road toll or an airport entry charge, are included in the quoted price wherever we can calculate them in advance. If one cannot be known in advance we will say so when we quote.

4. What we ask of you

• Be ready at the agreed pickup time and place.
• Give us a mobile number the driver can reach on the day, and answer it if we call.
• Tell us about anything that affects the vehicle we send: luggage beyond the usual, a pushchair, a pet, mobility equipment, or a passenger who needs particular help.
• Wear seat belts where they are fitted, and follow reasonable requests from the driver about safety.
• Do not smoke or vape in the vehicle. This is a legal requirement.
• Take your belongings with you. Lost property is dealt with in section 8.

A driver may end a journey if a passenger behaves in a way that is unsafe, abusive or illegal. If that happens we will tell you why.

If a vehicle is damaged or soiled during a journey we may charge for cleaning or repair. Any such charge will be limited to what the work actually costs us and we will show you the evidence for it. We have not set a fixed cleaning charge, and we will not invent one.

5. What we are responsible for

We will carry out your journey with reasonable care and skill, as described when you booked it, and within a reasonable time. Those are your rights under sections 49, 50 and 52 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, and nothing on this page limits them.

If we do not, the Act gives you the right to ask us to put it right, and to a price reduction where we cannot. Section 57 of the Act prevents us from excluding those rights, and we do not try to.

We do not exclude or limit our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that the law does not allow us to exclude. This includes our obligations as an insured private hire operator.

What we cannot promise is the traffic. Journey times depend on road conditions, weather, roadworks and events on the day. We plan for a sensible margin and we tell you if we think a time is tight, but a fixed price is not a guaranteed arrival time. If you are catching a flight, a train or a ship, allow more time than you think you need, and tell us the check-in or departure time so we can plan backwards from it.

6. Changing or cancelling

Call the office as early as you can. The detail is in the booking and cancellation policy.

One point worth knowing: the usual 14-day right to cancel an online purchase does not apply to transport booked for a specific date or time. That is regulation 28 of the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, and it applies to all transport operators, not just us. Our own cancellation arrangements are set out in the booking policy, and they are more generous than that exemption requires.

7. If you are unhappy

Tell us. Our complaints procedure sets out how to raise something, what we do with it, how long we take, and how to escalate it to Colchester City Council if our answer does not satisfy you. Nothing in these terms affects your right to take a dispute to court.

8. Lost property

If you think you left something in one of our vehicles, call 01206 701701 with the date, the time and the journey. We will check with the driver. Anything found is logged and held for you to collect, and we will tell you what your options are for getting it back. Items we cannot return are handed to the police.

9. Law and jurisdiction

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales. If you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland you can also bring proceedings in the courts there. As a consumer you keep the benefit of any mandatory protections of the law where you live.

10. Changes to these terms

We update this page when the way we work changes. The version that applies to your journey is the version published on the day you booked it, and the date at the top tells you which that was. We will not change the terms of a journey you have already booked.