Flat-fare taxi or private chauffeur: what each price actually covers

Comparing €56 with the price of a booked car means comparing two things that don't cover the same service. That isn't a polite way of saying ours is better — on plenty of journeys the taxi is genuinely the right answer. But it's worth knowing what you're buying.

What the flat fare covers

The regulated CDG–Paris fare is €56 to the Right Bank and €65 to the Left Bank. It includes pickup, the journey and luggage, at any hour. It's firm: it doesn't move at night, on a Sunday, or when it's raining and everyone wants a taxi at once.

For a simple trip — airport to a Paris address, two people, daytime — it is hard to beat. We'll say that without hedging.

What it doesn't cover

The flat fare applies between the airport and Paris proper. The moment you cross the périphérique — La Défense, Boulogne, Saint-Denis, Versailles — you're back on the meter, and the price is unknown until you arrive.

It doesn't cover waiting either. A flight two hours late is a taxi that has gone. Nor intermediate stops: collecting a colleague from their hotel before a meeting falls outside it. Nor a fifth passenger.

And it doesn't cover the queue at the rank, which is the real hidden cost of a taxi when several long-haul flights land together.

What you pay for with a booked car

The price is set when you book, for a specific journey, whatever the traffic does afterwards. A jam on the A1 is our problem rather than yours — that's a difference in kind from a running meter.

The flight is tracked. Land three hours late and the car is there at the actual time, with no phone call and no last-minute supplement. Waiting time after landing is built in, for baggage and passport control.

The vehicle matches what you asked for, including when what you asked for is a van for seven people with skis. And the driver is the same one throughout, which matters when the passenger is a client.

The honest arithmetic

One person, hand luggage, a hotel in the 8th, arriving at 2 pm on a Tuesday: take a taxi. It costs less and you'll be in Paris just as fast.

A family of four with suitcases, a flight landing at 11.40 pm, a rental in Vincennes: the booked car costs more on the invoice and considerably less in practice — because the version where you're third in the taxi queue past midnight with a crying child carries its own price.

The same logic applies to business travel. When the journey comes before a meeting that cannot move, the fare stops being the thing you're comparing.