Disgraceful 20% fare hike on Airlink 747 service

JCX BXC wrote: »

It's a service I've used many times, heck I've gotten flights for less than the aircoach fare! €12 return for such a route is very excessive in my opinion, far less of a distance than InterCity routes yet not much less on the price!

Personally I find €12 return for a coach with plug and USB sockets, reclining leather padded seating and overhead luggage racks which can be booked online up to a few minutes before the journey better value than €12 return for a bog standard bus with a couple of luggage racks which has none of those advantages.

The only reason I would use Airlink over Aircoach would be if I had an annual ticket that it was included on, a tourist pass that included it or I was going to/from an area not served by Aircoach.

Vronsky wrote: »

Inflation has been at or near zero for the last ten years, so the length of time it's been since there was an increase isn't a valid justification

I'm simply comparing the fare rises on the Airlink to all other modes of transport in the last ten years which I think is a pretty fair comparison.

john boye wrote: »

Personally I find the 747 a tad more reliable than the Aircoach and a bit faster off-peak too. Its Sunday morning timetable is less than useless though and that's a major disadvantage.

The problem with the 747/757 comes when it gets stuck on the Quays which is a bit of a bottleneck, and the fact there are 8 stops from O'Connell Street before you even get to the port tunnel which can slow it up whereas Aircoach is only stopping once between O'Connell Street and the airport.

On the other hand there are times of the day as you observed when the Port Tunnel route even with the extra stops is quicker than going via Drumcondra on Aircoach so it's swings and roundabouts really as to which one is faster since it isn't the case that one is always faster than the other.

One thing is for sure though - Aircoach need to deliver a proper real time solution to their service. Simply asking people to phone them up and ask is not acceptable, they need to put in place a proper real time info service and maintain it which they historically have failed to do on a number of occasions.