Aircoach coping well with snow.

dynamick

Brilliant service this week.
It showed up on time at 5am for me during the week. Had to use them again at 3am last night. Staff were really helpful.

dowlingm

Sadly my first experience with Aircoach (Jan 2nd) was a bit less enjoyable. 1pm departure ex Westmoreland Street (Cork route) delayed 30mins as the incoming bus had filled at Dublin Airport and diverted. A relief bus did turn up (only known because a fellow passenger called Aircoach - an airport shuttle driver as good as said we were out of luck) and departed 30 mins down.

The problem was though - the driver hadn't been to Cork in 30 years so another passenger sat in row 1 to help him out and he seemed to make at least one wrong turn in Portlaoise. We spent Kildare-Urlingford on the N7 and after that the M8 - I arrived at my stop 1hr late. Fortunately the event I was heading to was running late so it wasn't so bad in the end but the wifi was also dire, frequently cutting out. I'm sure it's normally better and so on but it wasn't a great first impression and I think Mrs D would be sceptical about trying them again - she's not a coach fan to start with.

I did note one attempt by a taxi driver to poach airport passengers in the 45mins while we were waiting.

devnull

To be fair though they could have just turned around and said the bus was full and not have put an extra bus on, I'd say it wasn't each to arrange a driver and a bus at such short notice, especially over the holiday season, and the driver you may have had was probably not normally driving that route and calling someone else in who was not working probably would have delayed it even more.

I know Bus Eireann put extra buses on all the time, but a depot like Broadstone, would have a much larger pool of drivers, and resources than Aircoach would. The later would not be having drivers standing by doing nothing in a way a state owned company would.

Jehuty42

devnull wrote: »

be having drivers standing by doing nothing

Any evidence for that?

AlekSmart

The later would not be having drivers standing by doing nothing in a way a state owned company would.

Perhaps,in this instance,Devnull is relying a tad on folk memory.

The days (and nights) of Bus Eireann having Drivers "sitting around doing nothing" are long gone.

Bus Eireann drivers are rostered to the N`th degree of efficiency,a factor which even Minister Dempsey`s inefficiency hungry investigators from Deloitte were forced to admit and commit to paper in their report.

Most of the auxilliaries operated for Bus Eireann services would be private sub-contractors who would be paid only for the journey operated.

dowlingm

devnull, I don't specifically blame Aircoach for the initial 30min delay (unless they knew from their prebooking numbers that they were almost certainly going to be full or nearly so ex DUB) but I do blame them for sending out a relief driver not conversant with the route or programmed GPS.

Ideally, there would be a single shared City owned bus terminal for Dublin accommodating all "Expressway" type services with Busarus handling commuter services. This is how it works in Toronto - the city owns the Coach Terminal with Megabus, Greyhound, Ontario Northland and Coach Canada sharing ticket desks etc. Having 30 people huddled around a stop in Westmoreland Street is not how Dublin City Council should want tourists to come and go from the City. Maybe there's some white elephant site on the Quays that would suit?