Patton Flyer (mod warning post #404) SEE POST #659 ALSO

dynamick

devnull wrote: »

The licensing regime is a pain for sure and benefits nobody, be that customers or operators, but the rules are applied pretty equally in a case by case basis...

If the rules are applied equally then why was Patton offered a licence that did not allow pickups at Gasthule, Blackrock, Tara Towers etc when Aircoach has published a timetable showing that they will be service these stops?

The Dalkey-Airport route was unserved by direct public transport before Patton. How would you get to a 6:30 flight? You would need a taxi.

Was Patton ever found guilty of anything in court or even injuncted? I thought he had found a workaround based on some other licence type.

devnull

dynamick wrote: »

If the rules are applied equally then why was Patton offered a licence that did not allow pickups at Gasthule, Blackrock, Tara Towers etc when Aircoach has published a timetable showing that they will be service these stops?

Read the posts above - Aircoach were given a license for these stops as they already serve these stops, the restrictions work that the Department will not let another operator serve stops where one operator is already operating to the same destination point (In this case the airport) but that operator that already has a license to can route other new routes through the same stop which they already have a license for.

For example, if Patton took the Dalkey license he was offered, which at that point was unserved by any transport, he would have exclusive rights over those stops in Dalkey etc nobody else would be allowed to operate a service from there to the airport, but he could reroute other services should he wish to from further afield and also call these at Dalkey on their way to the airport.

If you really want me to give you some examples of what is and isn't allowed I can outline it for you if that makes you understand better, but it is long winded and it's nearly finish time at work!

Was Patton ever found guilty of anything in court or even injuncted? I thought he had found a workaround based on some other licence type.

The question is if the workaround was valid why would he need to apply for a license in the first place making the whole fuss he is making redundant. The reason being it isn't valid.

JHMEG

devnull wrote: »

Aircoach pay Irish taxes and employ Irish staff and have Irish management and pay Irish fuel duty etc, so I can't see where the argument of them giving money to the UK comes into it,

Like Tesco, British Telecom etc, they repatriate their profits to Britain (Scotland to be exact).

twenty8

JHMEG wrote: »

Like Tesco, British Telecom etc, they repatriate their profits to Britain (Scotland to be exact).

And do you think that Aircoach is making a profit on the Dalkey route at the moment?

JHMEG

Any profit made by Aircoach is repatriated to Britain. Some people are being a wee bit disingenuous about that.

They made €1.36m profit in 2009.

devnull

There is a chance it could also be held in a local account for use by Aircoach rather than going back to the UK. Either way it's speculation unless someone wants to go on cro.ie and look at the accounts and then you will see for sure.

Many companies including the one I work for, is part of a larger company from another country, but our profit stays within our company for our use should it be required in the future, so to suggest every company who makes a profit who is owned by a larger company sends it all off every year to the parent company is misleading as it just doesn't work like that in a lot of cases.

Ham'nd'egger

JHMEG wrote: »

Any profit made by Aircoach is repatriated to Britain.

Unless you either audit Aircoaches accounts, work for their senior management or spy on their bank accounts you are unlikely to know exactly where any profits they make end up:)

JHMEG

Unless Aircoach is run by communists, which is unlikely, profit will be repatriated to the Britain where it will be taken out of the company.

Ham'nd'egger

JHMEG wrote: »

Unless Aircoach is run by communists, which is unlikely, profit will be repatriated to the Britain where it will be taken out of the company.

Again I ask, are you 100% sure that this is the case?

JHMEG

They'd be the first comany in history that didn't take profit out if they didn't.

Ham'nd'egger

JHMEG wrote: »

They'd be the first comany in history that didn't take profit out if they didn't.

So you don't actually know?

JHMEG

All British companies repatriate profits.

markpb

JHMEG wrote: »

All British companies repatriate profits.

Except for the ones that retain some of the profits and the ones that use the profits to invest in other companies (to avoid paying tax).

JHMEG

markpb wrote: »

Except for the ones that retain some of the profits and the ones that use the profits to invest in other companies (to avoid paying tax).

No company never profit-takes (unless it's not profitable of course), and Aircoach are no different to any other company.

Cookie_Monster

DalkeyResident wrote: »

I was highlighted today about the disgusting acts by the BRITISH company who is trying to shift our local operator off the route and find it disgusting what is going on and it is a pure case of the government support the multinationals over our country when it is in need. All of our money is going to these big corporate giants in the UK rather than back into our economy.

I am fully behind any campaign to get Aircoach removed from a route which they stole from Trevor, who built it up himself, only to be discriminated against by a department of transport who are no doubt giving special treatment to the multinationals.

The facts are the system is broke and Patton made a change to put the residents first and the people in my area ahead of the people with vested interests. I can only condone that the people on here are affilated with Aircoach as they are indefensible,

At the end of the day Dalkey is an affluent area for most and we are proud to be Irish in in Dalkey, and we will always support local businesses even if it means paying a bit more I believe it is worth it. I think the facebook group set up by Patton is a great idea and will be recommending it to all my friends, who do not want local innovation to be hampered by what is bully boy tactics.

I see posts about Intimidation? Well if I worked for Patton and see people at Aircoach stops I would put them straight and not just leave them there and tell them the true story, if somebody says that is intimidation then I worry where society has got to as telling someone the truth is not intimidation.

I am proud to be Irish and will always defend us against other groups, the fact that this is the country that split our once great country up is now trying to steal money from our economy tells you all you need to know.

WTF, have you got your head up your own arse?

firstly Aircoach are an Irish company, simply owned by a Scottish one.

secondly aircoach did not steal Patton's route, it is the other way round.

Thirdly do you shop in Spar in Dalkey per chance, cos they aren't Irish either.

fourth Aircoach employ far more emplyees and Irish people than Patton does. I've never come across an irish person working for Patton (not rellevant but I reckon this is cos he can pay them less)

do you also object to Dell, Microsoft or any other multinational taking money out of Ireland.

lastly the removal of return fares, no child or OAP rates, reduced running AND increasing fares shows Patton doesn't give a **** about his customers and only cares about getting as much money out of it as possible

what do you possibly mean by "what is bully boy tactics." Aircoach have operated entirly correctly and within the law since the start of this.

paulm17781 wrote: »

I didn't know Dalkey was unserved by public transport! This weekend I may take a DART or bus out to see for myself.

:D:D

JHMEG wrote: »

All British companies repatriate profits.

prove it

Cookie_Monster

JHMEG wrote: »

No company never profit-takes (unless it's not profitable of course), and Aircoach are no different to any other company.

that is a ridiculous statement.

dub_commuter

You can say sorry to me now guys - I have read the admission from First Aircoach that the authorities will not do anything about it, and they even admit they had a gun held to their head to start service or the license would lapse. Quite ironic considering

Sourced from:
http://leondaniels.blogspot.com/2010/05/election-night.html

Tne new is that yesterday we did in fact start our new Aircoach service from Dalkey to Dublin Airport (photo above), the one which has caused so much upset in the press. Regular readers will recall that Ireland is a regulated environment and you need a licence to run a bus or coach service. Both we and a local operator, Patton, had applied for a licence. He applied first so was offered it first, but declined. We applied second and when he declined it was offered to us instead.

Meanwhile Mr Patton started running anyway, and the Police and the other authorities have declined to do much about it. During this time transport matters have transferred to a new National Transport Authority.

We rather hesitated about starting, since the existence of an unlicensed operator rather makes a mockery of the system and guarantees at least some revenue abstraction. We asked the authorities to enforce the law to allow us to start properly but sadly nothing happened. Meantime the Patton company made quite a lot of noise about a friendly local Irish company being downtrodden by a foreign mutlinational corporation.

Licences offered in Ireland have a date by which operations must commence or they lapse. It has always been our desire to comply with the law so we thought we had better start anyway, which we did yesterday. The day, you will recall, was the occasion when Irish airspace was once against closed due to the danger from volcanic ash! No matter, we carried quite a few passengers (some both ways!).

It's just a matter of time before Patton sees it off - they have no chance as they have admitted nobody would do anything about the fact he is operating illegally.

Looks like Patton wins.

patrickbrophy18

JHMEG wrote: »

All British companies repatriate profits.

Of course they are. Did you think that Aircoach was going to put all of it's profits into Ireland? That is such a stupid statement to make. Aircoach is owned by First Group who are a British multi-national company. Any profit that is made by a multi-national company usually goes to it's head office. You clearly have no concept of a business hierarchy. As Cookie_Monster pointed out, SPAR is another multi-national company that takes it's roots in Amsterdam. Does this mean that it too shouldn't be trading in Dalkey. This "local trade for local business" philosophy is really quite pathetic. Same with the whole Starbucks thing. People drove it out of the village because of their snobby, clique views. Bulls**t!:mad:

Vic_08

dub_commuter wrote: »

You can say sorry to me now guys - I have read the admission from First Aircoach that the authorities will not do anything about it, and they even admit they had a gun held to their head to start service or the license would lapse. Quite ironic considering

Sourced from:
http://leondaniels.blogspot.com/2010/05/election-night.html



It's just a matter of time before Patton sees it off - they have no chance as they have admitted nobody would do anything about the fact he is operating illegally.

Looks like Patton wins.

Nowhere in that blogpost from a senior Firstgroup executive did he mention that they were not committed to continuing the service.

He made it clear they well know sweet FA will be done by the authorities to deal with Patton and knowing that decided to start running anyway. If they had no intention of giving it a proper go they would have let the licence lapse and not waste resources on starting it in the first place. They have put up expensive bus stops, re-deployed several coaches and will need several more drivers to run it, no competent company would do that for something they were expecting to pull out of in a short time.

I would imagine they left it to the last possible moment to commit to the route, giving the DOT as long as possible to do their job. Knowing that they haven't and won't do it they were faced with the decision of giving in to Patton and let the licence lapse or go ahead and invest in the route, they chose the latter and only a fool would think they will then turn around and give up in a month or two.

devnull

It speaks volumes about the department if they turned around to Aircoach and said they had to run a service or the license will lapse and were going to enforce this regulation, but they seem unable to enforce the more basic regulations - it really does state what a shambles this department is and the blog post shows it up.

It doesn't mean that Patton will win at all despite what some people on this board say, it means that Aircoach obviously know what they are getting into and are still willing to deploy resources in it, therefore they will not be going away anytime soon from the Dalkey route.

So it's quite the opposite actually - game on.

KC61

dub_commuter wrote: »

It's just a matter of time before Patton sees it off - they have no chance as they have admitted nobody would do anything about the fact he is operating illegally.

Looks like Patton wins.

How can you make these repeatedly negative conclusions after barely one day of service?

For someone who consistently states he doesn't agree with Patton, you are consistently posting every negative statement about Aircoach that you can find.

I find it very difficult to understand the logic of your posts. For someone who professes to not agree with Patton you are doing him a damn good service by repeatedly highlighting here everything he and his supporters does/says.

Cookie_Monster

devnull wrote: »

It speaks volumes about the department if they turned around to Aircoach and said they had to run a service or the license will lapse and were going to enforce this regulation, but they seem unable to enforce the more basic regulations - it really does state what a shambles this department is and the blog post shows it up.

It doesn't mean that Patton will win at all despite what some people on this board say, it means that Aircoach obviously know what they are getting into and are still willing to deploy resources in it, therefore they will not be going away anytime soon from the Dalkey route.

So it's quite the opposite actually - game on.

Indeed. For Aircoach it is quite simple. Run as normal and report every single Patton bus they see to the Dept and Guards. If nothing else they'll finally get sick of the calls / letters and deal with it.

JHMEG

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

firstly Aircoach are an Irish company,

If they are then so are Tesco and Halifax.

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

do you also object to Dell, Microsoft or any other multinational taking money out of Ireland.

Profit which was largely made abroad. There is a difference.

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

that is a ridiculous statement.
prove it

Peurile. Aircoach sent money out of Ireland back to their British HQ, just like any other British-owned company.

Note I am not taking sides, simply pointing out that Aircoach are not run by communists and will send profit back to the mainland.

I can understand the Patton resentment, but honestly, where is the Aircoach love-in coming from?

Cookie_Monster

JHMEG wrote: »

If they are then so are Tesco and Halifax.

totally different. Those two came into Ireland as UK companies and expanded. Aircoach was setup as an Irish company by an Irishman and ran for 4 years as an Irish company. It was bought by a UK company in 2003 but it is still Irish; its parent is British. To say a company is X just because it is owned by another from x is childish. Some of the biggest Irish banks before this mess had a huge % of shares held by non Irish people / companies / pension funds, does this make them non-Irish?

"Tesco Ireland" is an Irish registered company anyway.

JHMEG wrote: »

Profit which was largely made abroad. There is a difference.

They actually funnel profit through Ireland due to the tax rates, as do many other large multinationals, what do you think they IFSC's main reason for existence is

JHMEG wrote: »

Peurile. Aircoach sent money out of Ireland back to their British HQ, just like any other British-owned company.

You can't just state things like that. How do you know, Irish mgt may have decided to just pay a small dividend to the shareholders (First) and keep the rest as reserves, especially if they are expanding or need the money to put against parasites like Patton.

JHMEG wrote: »

I can understand the Patton resentment, but honestly, where is the Aircoach love-in coming from?

I don't love Aircoach, I just support their side of this argument as an honest and professional company. And am sick of having to defend them against Morons who keep whinging about how "they are a big bad british company stealing Irish money and jobs and blah blah blah"

JHMEG

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

totally different. Those two came into Ireland as UK companies and expanded.

Bit of a history lesson. Quinnsworth was set up by an Irish man and run as an Irish company for years, until Tesco bought it. Note striking similarity between this story and Aircoach.

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

To say a company is X just because it is owned by another from x is childish.

It's simple. I don't make the rules. If a company is solely owned by a company from Namibia for example, then that company is Namibian.

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

They actually funnel profit through Ireland due to the tax rates,

Simple lesson again. Make money, pay tax. The money left over is called profit. The profit is the interesting bit.

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

You can't just state things like that. How do you know, Irish mgt may have decided to just pay a small dividend to the shareholders (First)

That's called repatriating profits. It's unlikely they repatriate all profits, but likely the majority is repatriated. First, a British company, bought Aircoach for one reason only: profits.

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

I don't love Aircoach, I just support their side of this argument as an honest and professional company.

I never claimed they weren't. It's naive, blinkered, and plain wrong to say they keep all their profits in Ireland. Especially when Sterling is so weak at the moment.

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

And am sick of having to defend them against Morons who keep whinging about how "they are a big bad british company stealing Irish money and jobs and blah blah blah"

The moron bit is unnecessary. Put simply, some people don't agree with you. That doesn't make them morons.

Some people prefer to do business with Irish companies, for a number of reasons.

Cookie_Monster

JHMEG wrote: »

Bit of a history lesson. Quinnsworth was set up by an Irish man and run as an Irish company for years, until Tesco bought it. Note striking similarity between this story and Aircoach.

And removed all branding and mention of Quinnsworth and all its systems and products. Aircaoch hasn't any of this changed, just have a first logo stuck on the side.

JHMEG wrote: »

The moron bit is unnecessary. Put simply, some people don't agree with you. That doesn't make them morons

I never said that they are morons for not agreeing but there have been many people who have come into this thread and sprouted all sorts of untrue rubbish about both companies...

There are very clear facts here which are being ignored:

Patton applied for a licence first
Patton was offered and refused a licence
Aircoach applied second
Aircoach were only offered licence after Patton refused
Patton operates an unlicenced service

You cannot argue with these facts yet many haven choosen to ignore them and believe the ridiculous spin by Patton that Aircoach "Stole his route" or that the "gov favour multinationals" both of which are clearly wrong in the context.

First, a British company, bought Aircoach for one reason only: profits.

Again, how do you know this? Maybe it was for market access, branding etc. Yes eventually it will generate more money but that is not always the initial motivation.

Bit of a history lesson. Quinnsworth was set up by an Irish man and run as an Irish company for years, until Tesco bought it

That was the 2nd time they entered the Irish market by the way

JHMEG

My point all along has been simply that Aircoach profits are repatriated. For some people this is the key differentiator between the two companies. It would be the key in my case as I don't use either.

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

That was the 2nd time they entered the Irish market by the way

Yes, the first time they assumed we are same as our formers masters when they tried to sell Tetleys tea to Lyons drinkers.

Ireland has turned into a huge success story for Tesco shareholders, as it has for Aircoach's shareholders.

Cookie_Monster

JHMEG wrote: »

Yes, the first time they assumed we are same as our formers masters when they tried to sell Tetleys tea to Lyons drinkers.

:mad: Heathen, its all about Barry's

JHMEG wrote: »

Ireland has turned into a huge success story for Tesco shareholders.

Indeed; highest margin of any country in the Tesco group at around 9% but thats simply the total lack of competition in Ireland
They give me about €13 a year in dividends

JHMEG

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

:mad: Heathen, its all about Barry's

Like Guinness vs Murphys. Barry's, like Murphys, is only if you're from Cork, or odd.

devnull

Have accessed the latest accounts from CRO just to see out of curiosity to see where this debate is heading and who is right rather than posting rumour it seems that in the accounts to March 2009 they did not pay a dividend, They also did not pay a dividend to shareholders in March 2008.