I'm starting to really think that Tokyo taxis need more serious disruption.

I was taking the late night HND-LAX flight on Sunday and booked a fixed-fare taxi from Hinomaru to pick me up at 9 pm. Driver showed up a few minutes ahead of schedule and we were off.

There are two intelligent ways to get to the international terminal: the fastest way is to make a right just before passing through the domestic terminal complex and then take the tunnel under the airport to emerge on the north side of the international terminal. The other somewhat acceptable way is to take Shuto route 1 around the west side of the airport (Seibijo/Tenkubashi/Kampachi-dori). But my driver decided to blow straight through the domestic terminal complex, made a right on Kampachi, circled around the south side of the airport, and tried to turn into the international terminal the wrong way, reaching a "Do Not Enter" sign where traffic was coming out. At this point, I realized he was using an older GPS that didn't have the international terminal in it.

Now the driver was totally lost, and didn't know what to do. I told him that he needed to go in from the other side of the terminal, so he maneuvered back out to Kampachi and into the parking entrance. He then proceeded into the taxi pick-up area (which is NOT where taxis are supposed to drop off, and there are signs clearly saying so).

At this point I just wanted to get out, and didn't have much luggage, so I told him to stop somewhere and let me out. He insisted on taking me closer to the entrance and managed to piss off half of the taxi drivers waiting in the pick-up line as he maneuvered around them. Finally, we got to a spot close to the escalator and I handed over my credit card to pay.

He proceeded to swipe the card while the meter was showing the ordinary fare of >10,000 yen. I told him to stop because I booked the fixed fare of 6,800. He insisted that I hadn't booked the fixed fare. I pointed to the kanji on his screen showing that I had. By this point, the charge for >10,000 was already going through and the credit slip was printing out. The exasperated driver handed over 4,000 yen in cash and asked me to sign the charge for the full fare, while getting honked at by other taxi drivers.

I will probably try Uber next time, as they offer what appears to be substantially the same pricing as taxis to/from HND.