Aircoach Dublin-Cork express

I do agree that some of the criticism of the CIE companies is over the top and there are some people who are using any opportunity to put Irish Rail down, although to be fair there are some people who are the opposite on this board so it is just not one way.

There is a market for both the bus services and the train, personally I prefer the bus but I respect that there are reasons why the bus won't suit and for others the opposite, but to think just one type or other is needed is OTT in my view.

They have now posted a news article up about it:
http://www.aircoach.ie/news.article.php?ID=385

They still have not updated the timetable page however

To be fair the mid-week ones from 2-4pm in Dublin I have seen are only around 50% and peak times are always going to be Fri-Sun.

I believe Jonck's are put on the busiest services where possible on purpose since they seat the most.

Can't imagine it was that busy though seeing as it's barely advertised?

Oh it was advertised on their website but no mention of a start date!

Aircoach is very pleased to advise our customers using our Cork service that, as part of an ongoing review and Aircoach's commitment to the route, we are delighted to announce a new later departure from Cork to Dublin City Centre through to Dublin Airport.

This service will depart from Cork at 23:00 each day, will arrive into Dublin City Centre at 02:00 and Dublin Airport at 02:20.

Now considering it's not on the timetable page, and a couple of days after it started the stop at Westmoreland Street showed the last service from Cork as being 7pm, then I think it's a reasonable expectation that people either don't know about it, or don't think that it has started yet.

Most people would logically start at the timetables page, after all, that is what it is there for and this page is incorrect. Really what Aircoach need if they don'#t want to hire someone to fix all of the wrongs is to get some customer panel for example like other First Operating Companies have to feed back to the business and get action, since a website is effectively a sales pitch and a lot of it does nothing to sell the service and it's like nobody has thought about how it reads/looks from a customer point of view who won't have the knowledge of the staff member writing it.

They appear to have fixed all those issues and even updated the 'Our Coaches' page to mention Wifi, hopefully someone has been reading here and has finally come around!

With the BE strike on, it seems that Aircoach have added a lot of extra capacity:
https://twitter.com/alansmith90/status/333505202940436480

The Jonckheere is the biggest capacity bus on the route and is normally assigned to the busiest times to take the most people possible on those journeys, as stated before, booking online is the only way to guarantee a seat and if enough book online a second coach will be provided pretty much all the time and even when this isn't the case sometimes a second is provided.

As stated on here before, with the leasing situation (long leases signed in the boom) being the way it is with Aircoach, I'd say there is unlikely to be any change in the arrangement of coaches on that route until some of them come to an end. If they did acquire some more coaches they'd just make others redundant that they are paying for in leases which have a while to run, which would increase costs hugely.

The 6 coaches with toilet came from the parent company who no longer required vehicles with a toilet so they were sent to Dublin. As these were owned vehicles by the parent company sending them to Aircoach didn't change the cost base whereas leasing six new coaches with toilets would have vastly increased it. The Jonck's were never ordered with inter-city services in mind, but because of falling demand on the airport routes they had to be assigned elsewhere, since the company were committed to paying for them.

When I've stopped at Urlingford it's only been delayed 10-15 minutes.

bk wrote: »

It also looks like they might need to buy/lease in some new double decker coaches to meet the demand.

Now that would be a financial risk that I wouldn't say is worth taking right at the moment. Those double deckers both operators seem to quite a bit more time off the road than their single deck counterparts and have little luggage space and the Dublin Coach ones are far less comfortable than their double deck versions. Then you need to explore if their height would fit in the depot or preclude them from operating any route.

An overdecker such as what Citylink are bringing in may be more possible, but again it depends on costs and really only Vanhool will be in that market right now unless the upcoming Plaxton version is any good, which I doubt it is since most Plaxton coaches are not considered at the top of coach building.

Agreed. They really need to get new coaches and sort this mess out.It will probably happen eventually. Their are also big fuel savings to make by getting new coaches. Citylink has all new 2013 coaches for this reason, even though their previous fleet were pretty young Jonckheeres.

The fuel savings over those 2008/2009 Jonck's will be a few percent if that, there really would not be any big cost saving to be had by changing them and it could possibly even be weighed out by the time you lease new coaches which may or may not be expensive.

As I said before, when coaches come up for renewal there is a chance you'll see new coaches and a number and spec that is more suited to the services they are working, but also giving the company some flexibility as well in the future so they don't pin themselves down one road.

Citylink's coaches that have returned were all coming to the end of their leases or were owned directly by Callinan coaches. Even if Citylink fail Callinan's can still use the coaches for their private hire services since I understand they have a balanced portfolio of of owned and leased vehicles, this means it's less of a financial risk going forward.

The changes have to be made in a sustainable way, it's all very well offering the newest coaches with every faculty under the sun, but if it sends the company deep into the red when it's survival could be at stake as it's took on far too much financial risk to do so then it's terrible judgement. I'm sure they want to improve the services, but it has to be done by what the company can realistically afford given it's financial position which is one of loss making.

We've seen with Bus Eireann the fact they are struggling financially after investing big money in new coaches and then had to ask the staff to take a cut because of the financial position less than a year later (whatever the rights or wrongs of the strike), Aircoach would not have the security or safety-net that such company has so they have to manage their business in a way that is sustainable and unfortunately that means keeping costs down as low as possible. I would suspect any investment will be looked at on a "How much return could we realistically get on it in the short to medium term" basis.

Translink have a bunch of the Ayats in Northern Ireland since 2007/2008. Well known to be the most unreliable vehicle in the fleet by some distance some have already been withdrawn and are supposed to be awaiting sale due to the amount of problems they've had with them and drivers are supposed to be totally fed up with driving them and are reverting back to single deck coaches to replace them as they believe it's going to be more cost effective.

The trouble with less reliable coaches is the more unreliable a fleet is, the more coaches you need to cover for those that are off the road or broke down, you then need more drivers to rescue broken down services, or possibly hire in coaches from other operators, you then need to pay for towing and recovery costs, maintenance etc, it vastly drives costs up for the operator which could outweigh the whole benefits of the extra revenue achieved by running a larger vehicle anyway.

No idea when the Jonckheere leases come to an end but I'd guess late 2013/2014 at the earliest, the 2004 Setra's have been here for 9 years but I'd guess they had their leases renewed at some point (during the boom no doubt) as the 2003 Setra's departed at end of lease in late 2008 and early 2009.

Personally I haven't liked any twin deck coach I've been on apart from a new Vanhool overdecker similar to the one Citylink have and a German registered Setra double decker which still rates as the best vehicle I've ever been on of any type.

Well I've been on one completely full and never had a problem with it, although the Levante's with a toilet when full are not that comfortable.

The Jonck's have orange and blue full leather seats and are a much longer coach than the others but have around the same number of seats.