Aircoach up for sale?

Mr.Frame

soundman45 wrote: »

Just google Aircoach for sale, get all the links and info then.

Thanks , will do

mondeo

Don't know about Aircoach but I'm surprised Airport Hopper is still doing business. Every time I use them there is literally 3 people on the bus. Usually I am away overseas 2 times a month for business, I always get the airport hopper home from the airport, every time I am on it there are 3 or so souls on board the whole way from Dublin Airport to the Square Dublin 24. How are these guys still doing business ? I see them during the days to and never seen a bus full of people.

soundman45

Hopper is running every 30 mins from Maynooth now, they must have done a deal with Dept of Social as they now accept free travel also, but they are small players in the market running mini buses. Aircoach is a different story, we always hear Bus Eireann crying looking for state handouts yet Aircoach is a very profitable business with nett profits of approx 5 million per annum which with some investment should be more as especially on the Cork route they struggle to meet demand and are constantly paying contractors to operate extra services.

end of the road

soundman45 wrote: »

Hopper is running every 30 mins from Maynooth now, they must have done a deal with Dept of Social as they now accept free travel also, but they are small players in the market running mini buses. Aircoach is a different story, we always hear Bus Eireann crying looking for state handouts yet Aircoach is a very profitable business with nett profits of approx 5 million per annum which with some investment should be more as especially on the Cork route they struggle to meet demand and are constantly paying contractors to operate extra services.

to be fair bus eireann run mostly PSO routes which can generally be loss making. they do have expressway which is their commercial arm but they won't and don't get government money for that, it has to survive on it's own.
aircoach run fully commercial routes that are profitable.

bk

end of the road wrote: »

to be fair bus eireann run mostly PSO routes which can generally be loss making. they do have expressway which is their commercial arm but they won't and don't get government money for that, it has to survive on it's own.
aircoach run fully commercial routes that are profitable.

BE Expressway does however get an unfair indirect advantage from the subsidised side of the business.

They get to use the same depots, bus stations, drivers, mechanics, website, marketing team, ticketing system, etc., etc. which have been paid by the tax payer and are subsidised by PSO.

A very unfair advantage if you ask me. Expressway should really be fully separated from BE PSO and perhaps even sold off. They should be paying the full market cost of access to all these services.

There is also an argument that many of BE's PSO services could easily be run as for profit services, with no need for subsidy, if offered to private companies. Commercial companies would love to operate any of the commuter routes into Dublin, even without a subsidy, but are blocked from doing so.

Stephen15

bk wrote: »

They get to use the same depots, bus stations, drivers, mechanics, website, marketing team, ticketing system, etc., etc. which have been paid by the tax payer and are subsidised by PSO.

Fair point but you could also say that other private operators operating PSO routes such as JJK, M+A Coaches and GAI (if they decide to operate commercial routes) are having their purely commercial side subsidised by the profits made from taxpayers money through PSO.

A very unfair advantage if you ask me. Expressway should really be fully separated from BE PSO and perhaps even sold off. They should be paying the full market cost of access to all these services.

There has already been progress in this regard we know the pace of change is painfully slow in Ireland. Before the NTA existed there was no distinction between PSO and Expressway services now there is.

There is also an argument that many of BE's PSO services could easily be run as for profit services, with no need for subsidy, if offered to private companies. Commercial companies would love to operate any of the commuter routes into Dublin, even without a subsidy, but are blocked from doing so.

Yes but many of DBs PSO routes could also be run as for profit private routes doesn't mean they should as then there would be bus wars and a mess of privately operated routes like what happened when there was bus deregulation in the UK. Even some highly profitable services like the Luas are PSO

Markcheese

There's also the fact that BE expressways routes quite often have to wind their way along the n roads to serve small towns and villages,
While the majority want to go city to city, or to the airport, cork Dublin eircoach (straight up the motorway) is hours faster than on regular BE expressway,

end of the road

bk wrote: »

BE Expressway does however get an unfair indirect advantage from the subsidised side of the business.

They get to use the same depots, bus stations, drivers, mechanics, website, marketing team, ticketing system, etc., etc. which have been paid by the tax payer and are subsidised by PSO.

that's just a legacy thing though from when the lot was 1 bus operator across the whole country. it's an advantage but it's not really an issue, the big operators both here and abroad who may wish to enter could afford their own facilities anyway. and the NTA can build their own if they feel such is warrented, or if db or bus eireann have any spare and are willing to sell, pay the market value to buy them.

bk wrote: »

A very unfair advantage if you ask me. Expressway should really be fully separated from BE PSO and perhaps even sold off. They should be paying the full market cost of access to all these services.

selling off expressway removes income from the company though.
i would be surprised if expressway doesn't in accounting terms pay full cost for the use of facilities as it stands.

bk wrote: »

There is also an argument that many of BE's PSO services could easily be run as for profit services, with no need for subsidy, if offered to private companies.

i wouldn't think very many of them fit into that territory though. even if they do, they are probably routes to vital to simply be left to the commercial sector.

bk wrote: »

Commercial companies would love to operate any of the commuter routes into Dublin, even without a subsidy, but are blocked from doing so.

i'm sure they probably would, but those routes are an example of the ones to vital to simply be left to commercial private companies to run on commercial terms. they need to be controlled like all of the other PSO routes so that the user can have confidents that they will remain in place.

bk

Stephen15 wrote: »

Fair point but you could also say that other private operators operating PSO routes such as JJK, M+A Coaches and GAI (if they decide to operate commercial routes) are having their purely commercial side subsidised by the profits made from taxpayers money through PSO.

Well GAI are purely PSO services, right?

JJK and M+A Coaches, do they operate any significant PSO services? The vast majority of their routes are non subsidised. So if anything you could argue that the PSO side is actually benefiting from their commercial sides facilities.

The problem with BE is that it is the other way around. The vast majority of BE services are PSO and most of the company is financed as such. Their commercial expressway services are comparatively much smaller and thus greatly benefit from having access to the taxpayer paid for facilities. Which is a very unfair advantage to their competitors.

Having said all that, I'm very happy to say that any service operating PSO routes, needs to have completely separate companies and where facilities are shared, it is correctly accounted for and those facilities made available to competitors at the same rates.

Stephen15 wrote: »

Yes but many of DBs PSO routes could also be run as for profit private routes doesn't mean they should as then there would be bus wars and a mess of privately operated routes like what happened when there was bus deregulation in the UK. Even some highly profitable services like the Luas are PSO

No one is suggesting that! You should know better.

The alternative model is the licensed model that the NTA operate on the likes of the various intercity routes. Operators licensed to operate at certain times, frequencies etc. and their license pulled if they don't meet that license.

BTW Luas isn't a PSO route. It is contracted out to be run by a commercial operator and is mostly run at a profit and receives no subsidy.

What I'm saying is that many of the BE Dublin commuter routes could be licensed out to various operators similar to the intercity routes at no cost to the taxpayer.

Two operators like that in city services makes no sense as you well know. But instead the GAI/Luas model of contracting out bundles of routes makes sense for city services.

Markcheese wrote: »

There's also the fact that BE expressways routes quite often have to wind their way along the n roads to serve small towns and villages,
While the majority want to go city to city, or to the airport, cork Dublin eircoach (straight up the motorway) is hours faster than on regular BE expressway,

Well they have no one but themselves to blame for that.

They could have applied for the direct licenses from the NTA, the same as the private operators did. But BE said their was no demand for such services :rolleyes:

As the new motorways started opening up, people were crying out for such services, but BE were far too slow to respond to customer demand, which is an ongoing problem with them.

end of the road wrote: »

that's just a legacy thing though from when the lot was 1 bus operator across the whole country. it's an advantage but it's not really an issue, the big operators both here and abroad who may wish to enter could afford their own facilities anyway. and the NTA can build their own if they feel such is warrented, or if db or bus eireann have any spare and are willing to sell, pay the market value to buy them.

Of course it is an issue. Just like it was an issue that Telecom Eireann owned all the phone lines.

TE/Eir were forced to open up their telephone liens and broadband services, which is now why we have the likes of Vodafone and Sky operating over Eir phone lines and these companies pay the same rate as Eir's retail side does. It creates a fair market.

The BE bus depots and stations should of course be opened up to all companies to create a level playing field in the same manner.

end of the road wrote:

selling off expressway removes income from the company though.
i would be surprised if expressway doesn't in accounting terms pay full cost for the use of facilities as it stands.

Except Expressway has been making substantial losses the last few years and finally only made a small profit last year.

Which is quiet shocking and shows how inept BE are when you consider all the advantages they have and they still struggle to make a profit.

BE would actually probably be financially better off without Expressway!

end of the road wrote:

i'm sure they probably would, but those routes are an example of the ones to vital to simply be left to commercial private companies to run on commercial terms. they need to be controlled like all of the other PSO routes so that the user can have confidents that they will remain in place.

No reason at all why the NTA can't set out requirements for the license, such as schedule, frequency, etc. and pull the license if it isn't matched.

Stephen15

bk wrote: »

Well GAI are purely PSO services, right?

JJK and M+A Coaches, do they operate any significant PSO services? The vast majority of their routes are non subsidised. So if anything you could argue that the PSO side is actually benefiting from their commercial sides facilities.

The problem with BE is that it is the other way around. The vast majority of BE services are PSO and most of the company is financed as such. Their commercial expressway services are comparatively much smaller and thus greatly benefit from having access to the taxpayer paid for facilities. Which is a very unfair advantage to their competitors

At the moment they are but there's nothing stopping GAI starting to run commercial routes if they wanted to in the future using the same depot, drivers and maintenance as they use for their PSO contracts. So you could say GAI would be using taxpayer funded even resources to provide a commercial service if indirectly

Having said all that, I'm very happy to say that any service operating PSO routes, needs to have completely separate companies and where facilities are shared, it is correctly accounted for and those facilities made available to competitors at the same rates.

I'm not sure what facilities you are talking. For bus stations I agree with you though they should be allowed to be used by all services if not all PSO services provided by BE and other operators and not allow Expressway to use it.

No one is suggesting that! You should know better.

The alternative model is the licensed model that the NTA operate on the likes of the various intercity routes. Operators licensed to operate at certain times, frequencies etc. and their license pulled if they don't meet that license.

BTW Luas isn't a PSO route. It is contracted out to be run by a commercial operator and is mostly run at a profit and receives no subsidy.

I know no one was suggesting that I was just using it as an example to put into context for you.

I don't think opening the market while removing BE services on commuter routes would work very well. There already are some services competing with BE on commuter routes for example the likes of Matthew's and Ashbourne Connect but a lot of these services are more limited than BE PSO services.

Also these services accept Leap cards I know many privates also accept Leap cards but that's out of choice not requirement for example Aircoach don't. We also know that other than licencing routes there's little interference that the NTA are allowed to partake in when it comes to the commercial bus market under EU law.

Well they have no one but themselves to blame for that.

They could have applied for the direct licenses from the NTA, the same as the private operators did. But BE said their was no demand for such services :rolleyes:

As the new motorways started opening up, people were crying out for such services, but BE were far too slow to respond to customer demand, which is an ongoing problem with them.

I agree with you there now. But I would make the argument that many of the Expressway routes should be turned into PSO routes either fully or partially as there appears to be little interest by most private operators to compete with BE on those routes.

Of course it is an issue. Just like it was an issue that Telecom Eireann owned all the phone lines.

TE/Eir were forced to open up their telephone liens and broadband services, which is now why we have the likes of Vodafone and Sky operating over Eir phone lines and these companies pay the same rate as Eir's retail side does. It creates a fair market.

The BE bus depots and stations should of course be opened up to all companies to create a level playing field in the same manner.

You can't really open up their depots as atm there's only enough space to park all the BE buses that they have. Look I'm not here to defend BE I'm defending the concept of PSO bus routes whether they be operated by public operators like DB or BE or private operators like GAI or JJK.

Except Expressway has been making substantial losses the last few years and finally only made a small profit last year.

Which is quiet shocking and shows how inept BE are when you consider all the advantages they have and they still struggle to make a profit.

BE would actually probably be financially better off without Expressway!

Yes I agree but many of the Expressway routes are a relic from days of before PSO even existed and should be made into PSO routes either partially or fully.

No reason at all why the NTA can't set out requirements for the license, such as schedule, frequency, etc. and pull the license if it isn't matched.

Thought the NTA weren't allowed get involved in certain elements of the service on commercial routes for example fares which should be subsidised on all PSO routes whether profit making or not.