Dublin Airport Bus Service Changes & Discussion

patrickbrophy18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122188297#Comment_122188297

So, Killiney, Dalkey, Sandycove and Dun Laoghaire will no longer have an airport service?

LF403

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122190710#Comment_122190710

They're still all getting served as normal barring Killiney, but instead of the 703, it'll be the 702.

LF403

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122189270#Comment_122189270

I'm absolutely in agreement with the points you make, I'm just providing the reasonings I've been given as context. Of course it can all be looked at from different points of view, and I totally agree that it makes commercial sense to make these changes - Especially on a service like Cork, where even as it stands is constantly fully booked.

The big problem now seems to be a case of "too many chefs spoiling the broth". Since last year the company has been massively expanding the pool of management, who all seem to be getting less and less autonomy with each passing day. First seem to have money to spare for buying and repaving the Dublin depot, and getting a new office inside Dublin Airport.

But pleas from staff to properly maintain/fix the coaches, or to buy a proper spec of coach are met with "these things don't happen overnight"

devnull

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122190947#Comment_122190947

Of course, please don't take things personally as they are not aimed at you, yourself.

It does not surprise me that managers are losing autonomy. You just have to look at what has happened in the First Bus UK a over the past number of months with the consolidated structures and the now in progress return to a single livery UK wide, having spent the last god knows how many years introducing local liveries and branding and empowering local management. I've often heard it said that if you are in the industry long enough normally things come around again every so often and that certainly seems to be the case with First in UK!

However on the other side of coin, it might be argued, bearing in mind that before recently joining Aircoach, the two leading figures in the company now had no land based public transport experience, that they could do with some guidance from the parent group from people who may have more experience. Although saying that the group itself has saw a number of experienced industry figures leave over the past 18 months or so and replaced by people from outside the industry!

Gold7

Will any new stops on the 702 Route between and Shankill be added, there is a bus stop with a shelter on Church Road and is long enough for Coaches?

Gold7

Between Dalkey and Shankill I meant to say.

p_haugh

I assume the 702 will likely continue onto Greystones after Dalkey via Avondale Road and Wyattville Road then go along the N11? Would make sense as to why the flyover stop is being discontinued then, so that Cherrywood people would be "encouraged" to get the 700.

i.e.

dublinman1990

If the 702 is still going through Dalkey while going en-route to Greystones; it would have to go up via Castlepark Road and then onto the roundabout near Killiney SC to get through Ballybrack and then onto Shankill.

If it's passing through Ballybrack; will the 702 have a future stop outside Tesco in Ballybrack or will the route go through the main road which is located behind Tesco to make it's long journey time go a bit quicker on the route?

Will the 702 still use the flyover at Loughlinstown to continue it's route down to Shankill, Bray & Greystones?

patrickbrophy18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122191445#Comment_122191445

If that is the case, the time it takes to get from Greystones to Dublin Airport will be significantly longer. Unless the amount of stops is curtailed or the routing via Ballsbridge is removed in favour of the East Link Toll Plaza.

p_haugh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122196142#Comment_122196142

It will be going via the East Link, yes. The new 701 route will cover off the stops between the Grand Canal and Vincent's Hospital.

soundman45

THe delays on Greystones and Dalkey route were at Cardiff Lane especially at peak times, via Ballsbridge and Mount st was working better, East Link is not the magic carpet everyone seems to think as there is often 40min delays on it northbound some evenings

devnull

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122198590#Comment_122198590

There's been a quite vocal number of people who have spent the last few years arguing it should go back via the East Link to save time and make it more reliable, so I guess they will soon find out.

mikeybhoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122189017#Comment_122189017

Surely it would be more logical to split the 700 to the 700 as is today Leopardstown to Airport and 700A Cherrywood to Airport . With every second bus operating as a 700A offering the same combined frequency from Stillorgan onwards.

dublinman1990

There is also a potential issue with the road in Shankill in take into consideration as well.

The road outside St Anne's Church will be re-configured with new bus lanes as part of future plans for BusConnects. I would take it that planned project is now in the planning system and being used to tie-up with the Bray to City Centre CBC project.

The roundabout that is located outside the church will also be removed and will be replaced with a traffic light junction which is near Lidl in Shankill. If the 702 is still serving Shankill with it's revised routing to Greystones; it will make more sense to me that the 702 will continue it's revised routing along Wyattville Road and then onto the N11 via the flyover in Loughlinstown in future. It wouldn't any actual sense for the 702 to the use the current 45A & 45B route from Ballybrack to Shankill if it wants to avoid that potential conflict when that roundabout in Shankill gets eventually removed once it gets planning approval.

stephenjmcd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122199813#Comment_122199813

It won't be following the 45a route. It's continuing on its current route, the loughlinstown hospital stops will be remaining

Then up and over the flyover

Vic_08

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122200054#Comment_122200054

Then bouncing over dozens of speed bumps, making endless extra stops and sitting in every traffic jam DLRDCC have managed to generate in the last 10 years.

Who in their right mind would choose that as a way to get to the Airport from Greystones/Bray, and all for the bargain price of €18 one way.

Rock Steady Edy

An hourly Greystones to Dublin airport via the existing 703 route and the port tunnel sounds like a big improvement to me, particularly if a 24 hour operation is also restored.

Reliability might be compromised somewhat on the existing 703 route en route to the airport, but offset by not having to wait up to 2 hours on the return.

p_haugh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122200421#Comment_122200421

Because it's a much better option than paying 80 quid for a taxi!

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122202665#Comment_122202665

And for exactly the same reason plenty of people are happy to use the 16 from the heart of south Dublin - it may be slow but it is cheap!

p_haugh

Not sure when this became a thing, but Dublin Express are using Zone 9 for set-down only

devnull

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122203379#Comment_122203379

Good idea, their stops can be very crowded at times so this is a great solution.

devnull

Aircoach have sent a circular around this morning detailing cuts to their customer service line operating hours from tomorrow.

This is believed to be connected to the recent speculation that they are laying off their own customer service team and instead operate it from a shared service centre in North England.

The call centre will now no longer operate at weekends and will open half an hour later at 9am and close half an hour earlier at 5pm. The circular also says patrons should now allow 7 to 14 days for responses to emails

Social media coverage is also changing. Support will now be provided only on Twitter between the extended hours of 7am to 7pm Monday to Friday but weekend support will be restricted between 9am and 5pm.

The Aircoach customer services team are always happy to hear from you, to answer your queries or receive your feedback. We have some contact updates that we would like to share with you.

The easiest way to get in touch with Aircoach is via our online contact page https://www.aircoach.ie/help/contact-us. Our team will reply to your query by email within 7-14 working days.

Be sure to refer to the FAQ section on our website where your most common questions are answered. https://www.aircoach.ie/help

Contact by Social Media
Our team is available 7 days a week from 07.00 to 19.00 weekdays and 09.00 to 17.00 weekends to answer your queries on X (formerly Twitter). Please do not use alternative social channels to log queries.

Contact by email
Email us at info@aircoach.ie and a member of our team will get back to you in due course.

Contact by telephone
If you need to speak to a member of the team, give us a call!

Our call centre operating hours are changing from June 01st 2024. Our new telephone contact hours are:
Monday – Friday : 09.00am – 5.00pm

For queries during weekends from June 01st onwards, please use our X/Twitter social channel to contact our team who will be happy to help.

Contact telephone numbers remain unchanged:
Telephone (ROI): +353 (0)1 8447118
Telephone (NI): +44 (0)28 9033 0655

LOST LUGGAGE
We understand how stressful it can be when you lose something while travelling and we want to make the process of recovering that item as simple as possible.

Simply, go to Lost Property | Aircoach on our website and click the link. From there, follow the on-screen instructions to locate your missing item. If your item is not there, please check back as items are added daily and it may take up to 7 working days for the item to be logged.

Further instructions regarding the collection or delivery of your item will be provided during the recovery process.

Kindest regards,
The Aircoach Team

markpb

Any company that takes 7-14 days to reply to an email is taking the piss.

devnull

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122205473#Comment_122205473

Indeed, and an airport service operating 24 hours a day needs longer phone line hours than 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday only. It's simply not good enough. Couple this with the AI generated responses on their review site rather than properly addressing issues and you have an operation that doesn't seem very customer focused.

Judging from the way tweets are being replied to on the Aircoach account last couple of days, I would imagine that is also now being run from the UK, as the tweeter is signing their name off the same way that First accounts in the UK do.

devnull

Outsourced customer service to mainland UK off to a great start on Aircoach, someone asking about a bus from Dublin to Cork is then asked for a route number.

https://twitter.com/aoifekimber/status/1796957280799171057

https://twitter.com/Aircoach/status/1797184925491187858

This is exactly the kind of problem you have when you have people answering questions on social media who are not familiar with the services that they are supporting. Local staff would be able to answer immediately as they would know it could only possibly be one route.

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122009127#Comment_122009127

I was disappointed to find that the Volvo 9900 on the route had no footrest

This isn’t true, I travelled on the new Volvo 9900’s this weekend and I can confirm they have footrests! You might just have not realised it as they aren’t fixed footrest, they are up by default and you have to pop them down to use them. This is better than a fixed footrest, as you can choose to have them up and not use it and get extra foot or luggage space.

Also obviously it subjective, but I found the Volvo 9900 seats to be very comfortable!

The Tourismos on the Cork route are a fine coach with a footrest, comfortable seat and good heating. The drawback of the Aircoach Tourismos is that the legroom is limited.

They are so rubbish, Aircoach have now pulled them off the Cork and Belfast routes and replaced them with the old Panther coaches!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122012761#Comment_122012761

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122138588#Comment_122138588

I can confirm that the seats on the Citylink 9900’s to Cork pull out! Not that they need it, they have so much legroom you really don’t need it, I pulled it out to try it and then pushed back in because it is unnecessary and kind of weird place to sit if you don’t need the leg space, harder to use the tray table etc. But good to know, thanks.

On the subject of subs, I noticed a Silver/Grey Tourismo on the route, it had a GoBus sign in the front window. But what is interesting is that it didn’t appear to be an actual substitution, but actually an extra bus, because it and the usual Volvo 9900 arrived in Cork from Dublin within a few minutes later. According to bus times, they both left Dublin Airport at 14:00 today.

Maybe a sign that Citylink to Cork is getting so busy they are putting on extra coaches to meet capacity!

belfast stephen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122216308#Comment_122216308

the Tourmiso's are still on the 705x today F58 and F59 Tracking on the 705x

devnull

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122219727#Comment_122219727

Have been used less though then they were previously, probably are not enough NI Panthers to avoid using the NI Mercs altogether.

bk

You are right, though they certainly don't seem to be seeing much use. Interestingly F61 hasn't been seen in over two weeks! And F58 not in a few days. F59 and F60 seem to be doing limited trips.

Out of 39 departures today, just 7 were operated by Merc's on the route.

They definitely haven't been on the Cork route in the past two weeks. And C55 and C56 haven't been seen in a week as well!

Certainly doesn't sound like a resounding success.

devnull

Dublin Airport are now selling tickets for Bus services on their website.

https://www.dublinairport.com/to-from-the-airport/by-bus/buy-bus-tickets