Aircoach Route Changes and General Discussion.

mikeybhoy · 10-12-2024 07:10PM

Also see that First have re-entered the London market purchasing London United from RATP group

devnull · 10-12-2024 07:52PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122941455#Comment_122941455

There is tighter and tighter integration of the operation with the UK arm in terms of shared services and also processes that are used. Increasingly it appears Aircoach is being treated more and more akin to just another bus operating company under the UK Bus umbrella by First, despite the fact Aircoach is neither a scheduled bus company nor a British company.

This is a big mistake. There is a difference between running a scheduled coach company in Ireland and a city bus company in the UK. The operation was purchased all those years ago on the advice of Leon Daniels, former First Bus Senior executive who later went on to be director of bus transport for TfL. He was at pains to say both at the time of purchase, also years down the line and in recent years on his podcast, as saying that he always reminded the senior team that running a coach in Ireland is not the same as running a bus in the UK. That has well and truly been blown out the window.

Aircoach has been most successful when it has been led by people who know the market and know the industry. Sadly such management has now been missing for a long time and in particular over the last 18 months it has really been noticeable at just how far the operation has fallen in everything in terms of reliability, customer service and communications. It badly needs an experienced hand at the Irish market to give it some well needed guidance, but First seem determined to hire staff from the UK or it's existing operating companies, or people who existing management have working with previously in other industries to many of the roles, when really it needs that local knowledge.

Only this weekend during the storms, the folly of not having their own customer care team and social media team anymore and outsourcing the whole thing to the UK showed them up once again. Services were cancelled due to the weather but nobody posted that on social media. Even this weekend aside there are still late notice cancellations that are happening because of a lack of available drivers. There is complete silence about many of these and for some reason the operation simply doesn't seem to be able to or be willing to put processes in place to make sure such information is released as soon as it is known about.

Aircoach say the lack of notification is due to Operational factors beyond their control. Any company who is worth their salt and cares about their customers would ensure that as soon as the operations team are aware a service is not running, they should be required to communicate this fact immediately via customer contact channels and have access to do so directly. Yes the contact centre should be answering the queries, but the actual updates should be coming out directly from operations as that is where the information source is and they should release it directly to make sure they get out there as quick as possible without needing to go through a bottleneck middleperson. And if someone says it's not their job, then that speaks volumes about their lack of customer focus.

In other news, First has launched a new logo, and has refreshed the brand and according to the Route One magazine article, they are going to now be concentrating on the following key areas.

Punctuality improvements
Minimisation of cancellations
Improvement to vehicle cleanliness
Maintaining customer and colleague safety
Provision of accurate and timely information to customers.

Lets see if any of these things, some of which are badly needed here, can make it over the Irish sea.

belfast stephen · 10-12-2024 07:56PM

Talk of the new coaches entering serivce on the 705x sometime in January 2025

mickmmc · 16-12-2024 04:20PM

Aircoach need new Coaches on the 704X, Cork service. During the Summer, I was on 152 and 162 Panthers on that route - those coaches are really tired now.

Aircoach should have bought deckers for the Cork service in 2015/2016 onwards, like City Link on the Galway route and Dublin Coach. I could never understand why decker coaches were never purchased by Aircoach. Kearneys did well with their coaches hired in pre-covid to increase capacity on the route.

devnull · 16-12-2024 08:02PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122962862#Comment_122962862

Don't think double deckers would have been a good investment really, they are quite hard to shift on the second hand market and I don't think they would have passenger numbers to support many of them without risking them becoming somewhat of a white elephant. However they should have bought some triaxles that's for sure. Instead they bought even shorter Tourismos.

Both the Panthers and the Tourismos are below the standards that can be found on CityLink and Dublin Express.

delboythedub · 16-12-2024 09:02PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122716135#Comment_122716135

€43.000 per year before tax for working early morning starts, night work , weekend and bank holidays and through in christmas. ***k that, it probably would not pay your rent

belfast stephen · 16-12-2024 09:51PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122963756#Comment_122963756

aircoach bought them Tourismos. as thats all they could get of Merc at the time

mickmmc · 16-12-2024 10:27PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122963756#Comment_122963756

I am referring to pre-covid period.

All the fleet did not need to be deckers.

Dublin Coach bought 10 deckers in 2022 and Citylink have a few new 242 Vanhool deckers on the Galway route.

With regard to second-hand value, Aircoach has still 141 coaches on the road. The 141s were 5 years on the Cork route. Are they scrap value after 10 years?

Maybe they are not needed now due to Citylink doing well on the route.

devnull · 16-12-2024 10:35PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122964136#Comment_122964136

Clearly they thought a bad deal was better than no deal!

If someone offers you something that is not suitable for the work that you need it for or a deal that isn't a good one, then you absolutely don't need to sign or agree to those terms. There are other opportunities out there, either to procure other vehicles or if that is not so easy you take some interim measures until you can get new vehicles that are suitable.

As a brand, the Tourismo is an excellent coach, but the ones Aircoach have are just unsuitable in so many ways, they're far too high density for an intercity coach, have basic seats, lack curtains, the USB chargers are in stupid locations, they lack carpet. They just feel like a budget coach. They actually make the Panthers feel a better product which is striking as the Tourismo is a far better coach at heart.

If you add to this the commercial naivety on the Galway route, everything that has happened with Airporter and Derry since the takeover and the general operational issues that have plagued much of the 2024 calendar year, then it's no wonder Aircoach lost record sums of money in the last financial year.

devnull · 16-12-2024 10:54PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122964320#Comment_122964320

The thing is with CityLink is that there is always demand for Callinan (who have the CityLink contract) to provide deckers on private hire and contract services and they do quite a lot of that kind of work, so there's the opportunity to cascade those vehicles or redeploy them should they not be need anymore on CityLink work.

There's a lot less demand for double deck coaches on the second hand market than there is for single deck coaches. The owned Panthers can be assigned to First UK operating companies at the end of their life in Aircoach as private hire or contract fleet or sold on the second hand market, First have nowhere to redeploy second hand coaches too and they would be in a lot lower demand on the second hand market.

I think the time for double deck coaches has passed on Aircoach if there ever was a time, I still think there is an argument for tri-axles though, not just for passenger numbers, but to allow for a lower density of seating to be closer to the competition in terms of comfort. Aircoach are cramming in roughly the same number of passengers on their standard two axle Tourismos as Dublin Express and CityLink are on their longer tri-axle vehicles. I refuse to use Aircoach for Intercity trips now because for someone over 6ft, it's simply not as comfortable as the other options on the Cork and Belfast corridors.

mikeybhoy · 18-12-2024 02:09AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122964348#Comment_122964348

From what I gather the drivers seem to like the Tourismos alright so a good coach but Aircoach have bought the completely wrong spec for passengers. They'd be an excellent product imo if Aircoach got the spec right.

They seem to have made the sensible the decision to relegate the Tourismos in Dublin to the 700/701/703 with Cork still getting the mainly the 2019 Panthers.

But not great from the company's pov when the Tourismos were likely bought with the purpose of being used on the Cork service usually the local work get's the older coaches. They also have toilets which is a bit of a waste for a short distance service.

The 2014 Panthers must be up for withdrawal soon enough most of them have nearly 2m kms on the clock.

devnull · 18-12-2024 06:34PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122969093#Comment_122969093

Agreed. There's no doubt that a Mercedes Tourismo is a vastly better coach than a Plaxton Panther in almost every single way, but all of the advantages that it has are worth very little if you get the specification of the interior wrong or spec a vehicle that isn't really suited to the work it is to be deployed on.

When I first heard Aircoach were obtaining Tourismos I thought that was an excellent sign and a much needed upgrade in class of vehicles would be forthcoming, the end result was a vehicle with the heart of a Merc, but a fit out more reminiscent of much cheaper marques.

devnull · 23-12-2024 12:02AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122840890#Comment_122840890

It is now being reported that this has been scrapped and the airport spec vehicles that are running on the Glasgow Airport run will now be used elsewhere on non airport services.

The replacements have now started to arrive at First Glasgow in what seems to be a livery that looks very similar to the Airlink Service previously run by Dublin Bus.

Photo: James Brompton

Instead some 10 year old Enviro 400 MMC vehicles with a spec closer to a city bus will be cascaded from First Somerset will be deployed on the 700/701 service and have luggage racks added.

I can't fathom why they'd go down this route unless they are planning to seriously undercut the competition on price and run the services as basically a budget cheap and cheerful operator.

mikeybhoy · 23-12-2024 02:30PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122984152#Comment_122984152

I can see the thinking behind using double decker city buses as opposed to coaches. Can carry more passengers and lower dwell times so can get more out of the schedule. Aircoach take more time at their stops than most other operators because of luggage. I'd say using city buses could shave 5-10 mins off a full journey which could make the difference of requiring less duties to run the route. Given Aircoach's issues with staffing in recent times could make quite a difference.

Using city buses never seemed to cause DB any issues with the Airlinks competing with Aircoach and they were extremely dated buses with bench seats.

Tourists generally don't really care much about comfort of a vehicle for a short hop it's mostly something that concerns business and local travellers. I've been in some places on the continent where the local DB equivalent charge 6 or 7€ for an airport service and it's just a regular city bus with zero premium features. This is usually in places where there's a monopoly on airport services mind you.

devnull · 23-12-2024 03:04PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122985132#Comment_122985132

I can see the logic for a double decker city bus with a premium interior (like Glasgow Airport Express or Lothian Airlink) that undercuts Dublin Express, but I can't see a market for a bog standard city bus charging the same price as Dublin Express charge for a coach. It's a different operating environment than 2020 as cost of the city bus service has come down.

In addition I'd far rather pay €2 for a ride connecting into a modern Dublin Bus 16/41 service from anywhere in Dublin than a ride on a mid life Enviro 400 MMC for five times the price to save 10-15 minutes. If I was going to spend five times more, I'd plump for Dublin Express as it's better connected and at least offers something for that five-fold increase.

The difference between now and Airlink is those routes significantly benefitted from monthly/annual pass users as well as connections to train/bus stations. Aircoach has neither of those. It's also now possible to get to the airport from anywhere by a regular city bus for €2, which is far cheaper than when Airlink ran, whilst Aircoach has gone up a fair bit so the gap is far bigger than it was a few years ago.

People might have been happy to pay €3 at most more to use the 747 over the city bus in 2020, but are they going to pay €8 extra in 2025 to use a similar standard bus and even then they might need to take another bus to get them to their final destination, which will cost extra when they could do the whole trip for €2.

I too think the idea of using double decker vehicles is a good idea for all the reasons you said, but it has to be with proper airport spec vehicles and at a price point that makes it an attractive proposition. There is room for a service on the 700/701 somewhere between Dublin Bus and Dublin Express in my book, but to make it attractive enough it needs to both be cheaper than Dublin Express but a higher standard than a City Bus which is very attractive to the airport due to the cheap through fares.

mikeybhoy · 23-12-2024 05:41PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122985232#Comment_122985232

I would agree with nearly all what of you're saying. My guess is that Aircoach/First may think they can operate as a bit of tourist trap. A lot of tourists may not be even aware of the 16/41 as their met with Dublin Express and Aircoach immediately at arrivals. A bit like the Gatwick Express which gets a lot of business from people who are unaware of the far cheaper Southern service which takes nearly the exact same time.

It seems daft alright that their not sending over the Glasgow Airport Express buses. They would have been the obvious choice and their going to have the added cost now of fitting luggage racks to the transferred buses aswell them being older and less of a lower spec.

I read on Tapatalk forum that the buses from the Jurassic Coaster service. From the pictures I've found of these buses they look like their of a similar spec to the pre 2018 Bus Eireann VWDs. So I guess not quite as basic as a DB vehicle but not as good as the Glasgow Airport buses.

Exiled Rebel · 24-12-2024 12:11AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122985653#Comment_122985653

I thought the Jurassic coasters had open tops? At least the one i was on had.

devnull · 24-12-2024 11:53AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122986854#Comment_122986854

They had some older vehicles that were open top alongside the closed tops that ran in the warmer months but they were withdrawn during autumn.

At present the fleet is mix of closed top Enviro 400s, Enviro 400 MMCs and Gemini 2s. Whilst the Enviro 400MMCs are the youngest, they spent a few years hammering around Bristol previously and the Jurassic Coaster route has some quite significant hills so I imagine they have not had an easy life.

crushproof · 03-01-2025 05:57PM

The usual story over Christmas, buses not appearing with no pre-warning and no one to contact at Aircoach. Only alternative was an incredibly expensive taxi all the way to the airport. It's a shockingly poor service at times.

devnull · 05-01-2025 09:57PM

Talk of a number of Aircoach Cork services being cancelled and there is confusion about the status of services for tomorrow.

There is no information on Aircoach social media or their website in relation to operation of services and neither has there been a single update the whole weekend about same.

This once again shows the ongoing poor customer service from Aircoach and a lack of customer focus. Just because their customer service is closed and it's the weekend, doesn't mean it is acceptable for there to be radio silence.

The operations department should be posting updates, just like Dublin Bus, Bus Eireann, CityLink and even (shock horror) Dublin Coach are doing.

Edit 06/01: Seems that the Cork service is running this morning based on what I've seen on the streets this morning.

devnull · 09-01-2025 12:35AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123035629#Comment_123035629

Aircoach coach fleets historically:

2003/2004 Setras 12.2m with 44 seats without toilet
2008/2009 Joncks 13.4m with 51/53 seats without toilet
2014-2020 Panthers are 12.6m and 53 seaters without toilet or 49 seaters with toilet.
2022 Tourismos are 12.65m (with mirrors) with 55 seats without toilets or 53 seats with and a larger wheelchair lift.

For Comparison

National Express Levante 3's on the Belfast route are 14.3m with 55 seats + toilet.
Citylink have Volvo 9900s on the Cork to Dublin Route at 13.1m (I think, they look too short to be the 13.7m model) with 53 seats + toilet.

The Tourismo's that Aircoach have for me are a very unpleasant place to be for someone tell on the longer runs to Belfast and Cork and the Panthers they replaced were a downgrade from what came before them. The competition have far more comfortable vehicles now.

belfast stephen · 09-01-2025 03:42PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123035957#Comment_123035957

the coaches on the 785 are 53 seats for more space

belfast stephen · 09-01-2025 03:45PM

also new coaches for Aircoach for the 705x are rumoured to be on the road from early February

LeftByRoadside · 11-01-2025 02:50PM

Booked a ticket from Dublin to Belfast international airport with just enough time to catch my flight. I attempted to change to an earlier coach as I envisaged bad weather could mean delays but this was declined by customer service rep on phone. Got to Belfast city centre and bus driver discovered there’s no one to take over from her.

She rang the office only to be informed that the driver to take over from her is running late due to being on a later bus which was delayed due to weather. She then told us there’ll be a delay of about an hour, worse still, she told us we needed to get off the bus and wait for the next bus to come.

We pointed out to her that there’s no warm place to stay whilst waiting for the later bus as this was in the evening and the shops around were closed. We suggested staying on the bus whilst waiting would be safer than just being out on the streets but her response was she didn’t care as she needed to take the coach to their yard and go on her break. When we pointed out how it was insensitive for her to prioritise her break over customers’ safety, she became rude and unprofessional shouting and talking down on us stating it wasn’t her problem.

We requested to talk to her supervisor in the office with the hopes of getting them to empathise with our plight of leaving us out in the cold unattended in a strange place but what we got was the shock of our lives when her boss told her to call the police on us to throw us off the coach. It was shocking to be threatened with the police just for asking that Air coach fulfill a contract between us.

My contract of getting me from Dublin to Belfast airport clearly did not include being left out in the cold street for an hour or more.Had to find a Taxi to get me to the airport because it was not safe to stay out in the cold on the streets in a strange place at that time of the night. The taxi trip eventually cost me more than the cost of ticket from Dublin to Belfast.

It would have been more cost effective for air coach to either;1. Facilitate the driver to delay taking her break by just a few minutes to drop us off at the airport (which is just the next stop just less than 30 minutes away) and be compensated for the few minutes extra time.Or…2. Facilitate a taxi or alternative arrangement to drop us off at the airport rather than throw us off the bus into the cold and threatening us with the police like we had committed a crime.

Well, maybe it was a crime choosing Air coach. But I guess they didn’t care much about customers’ safety and experience, that much was communicated to us by the driver who minced no words in letting us know that her break takes priority over our safety and experience.

So, very terrible service and the worst experience of my life and this is significant giving that I have experienced some really bad transport services growing up in Nigeria.

LF403 · 12-01-2025 08:52PM

The first of the Enviro 400MMCs has been added to the Aircoach fleet list on bustimes. Was spotted heading up the M5 motorway (UK, on 20/12/2024) with all of its branding removed, heading for a respray and then to be sent to Ireland.

There was originally an image attached to the fleet edit post, but it has since been removed.

Reg no. SN65 ZDD. Fleet no. 33967.

mikeybhoy · 12-01-2025 11:38PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123044392#Comment_123044392

Vent your frustrations at the company not the driver. Driver is simply doing her job correctly even if she wanted to continue she'd likely be breaking the law as that would likely be committing a tachograph infringement the 705x is governed by EU drivers hours regulations rather than more flexible domestic driving as it's over 50km. So you're basically saying the driver should risk her job and her licence just so you can get to where your going.

Also if you are told to leave a vehicle by a company official which the driver is and you refuse to comply the driver is fully within their rights to have you removed.

I have some sympathy with you for the fact the service was curtailed however your anger should be fully vented at Aircoach management for failing to operate the service as advertised. You basically shot the messenger. Having a go at a driver for simply doing their job correctly is low, driver probably knew about as much as you that the relief would fail to show up. It's up to Aircoach management to effectively communicate with customers and staff.

Not to mention the 705x is a complete dogs dinner of a route since the Airporter takeover but that's neither here nor there as the service should still operate as advertised.

bikeman1 · 13-01-2025 12:16AM

These situations would be a lot better if Aircoach was allowed to and used the multi million pound Grand Central Station just beside there and you could at least wait in a decent place and watch the going ons.

Belfast City Centre is not some strange place btw. It’s the second biggest city on the island. For reference there is the lovely Europa Hotel just there, you can pop in and have a cup of tea. The Crown Bar is really a beautiful place, you could pop in there to kill a half and hour. Loads of other places to grab a tea or coffee just there.

Finally, while Aircoach were crap in this situation, there is also a bus running from the bus station (2 minutes away) and while it’s expensive, it would be far cheaper than a taxi. Sometimes you have to be flexible in your travel plans. Google maps is your friend for this things.

bk · 13-01-2025 01:36PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123049811#Comment_123049811

These situations would be a lot better if Aircoach was allowed to and used the multi million pound Grand Central Station just beside there and you could at least wait in a decent place and watch the going ons.

That would be up to Translink, not Aircoach, I'm sure Aircoach would love to use it.

Remember when Aircoach had to take legal action against Translink to be even allowed to park on the street in front of the Europa Bus Center!

I don't know if true, but Aircoach and DX are supposed to eventually be allowed to use it, but there is still works going on there the precludes it for now.

devnull · 13-01-2025 08:12PM

It is certainly not the outgoing drivers fault that there is nobody to relieve them at Belfast City Centre and of course they cannot be expected to drive in excess of their legally allowed hours if that indeed was the case. There is not much a driver can do in this situation. However I would still expect them to be polite if you had been polite to them.

However this certainly comes back to the scaling down of the Aircoach customer service hours and the removal of the local customer support centre and the general lack of customer focus that we have seen over the last 18 months. I think there are enough examples, both on here and on their reviews website that show that unfortunately there isn't enough focus, at least from what we can see in public, in the customer journey experience.

If Aircoach are unable to operate a service in full and have to curtail the service without notifying the passenger in advance of this before the start of their journey, they should be assisting passengers to complete their onward journey, as it has been booked. If they were not able to provide other transport themselves, then they should have advised of other options and covered the cost of that. If other options were not available then the company at it's own expense should have been covering the journey via means of a taxi or allowing the passenger to take a taxi and then reimburse them for it.

stephenjmcd · 30-01-2025 12:19PM

Changes on the way ?

Seems like proposed plan is to terminate the 702 in Dalkey

https://www.eastcoast.fm/news/wicklow-news/concerns-raised-over-proposal-to-cut-aircoach-service-connecting-wicklow-to-dublin-airport/

Aircoach Route Changes and General Discussion.

Comments

Photo: James Brompton