Dublin Airport Bus Service Changes & Discussion

Services are not operating tomorrow. Unfortunately they are not willing to say more than that to passengers whom have not pre-booked services it seems. It shows a complete lack of regard for potential walk up passengers of their service and is completely unacceptable for any public transport operator not to be transparent about the fact they are not operating services.

If you couple this with the fact that they have removed their own tracking function from their website and have stopped reporting any kind of cancellations of services when they happen in general and have resorted to replying to complaints on their reviews with AI rather than replying to them properly, it creates a very clear picture of how much Aircoach value their patrons these days, a far cry from the old days indeed.

What's interesting is that despite the fact they have no tracking on their website, according to driving staff at the company, they are now able to nanny drivers and see when they make 'unscheduled stops' and each time they accept or sell a ticket on their own in-house tracking software and even what type of ticket it was. It's rather ironic they have that level of eyes on their drivers, whilst at the same time they can't even tell potential customers that certain services are not running or provide on-site tracking information.

See further upthread, these are new licenses, the old ones expired and were given up.

The present Aircoach 706/706X service to Galway from Dublin will be withdrawn, with the last day of service of the current route being on 7th April. Effected Staff were informed in a meeting today.

Well the competition authority only allowed the takeover of GoBus by CityLink on the basis that Aircoach would be operating the services that they did. I still think that it was a mistake by the competition authority because anybody with any clue about the commercial realities of the market would know that the sheer number of services those companies were running between them would make it almost impossible for a new entrant to make the route successful, which has proven to be the case.

I know that there were a number of people involved in CityLink/GoBus who were happy as pigs in a certain something that Aircoach were willing to start operating on that route, because there is no way they would have been able to have merged their operations without having to make some serious concessions. It couldn't have worked out better for ComfortDelGro in terms of this corridor since the takeover went through and what is more is that Aircoach literally gave them a helping hand on the way.

What is totally clear now though is that the relevant competition authorities and the NTA must take action on the Galway corridor if they haven't already. There is no way now that a new operator is going to go into that corridor unless CityLink are made to relinquish one of their licenses or the NTA are willing to sanction non stop services on the Galway to Dublin route.

Dublin Express have really schooled them commercially, it's quite embarrassing how awful Aircoach have been commercially over the past number of years, it's hard to think of much they have got right.

Whilst Dublin Express have been busy promoting themselves, doing deals with many third parties, building a significant ticket agent network, getting a good presence at Dublin Airport and procuring premium vehicles, The Aircoach commercial team has been focusing on stuff like recording podcasts on buses, Winning awards for creative partnerships in Derry with the Arts and focusing on making Wellbeing stuff available on board. I mean I'm not saying Aircoach shouldn't be doing these things, but the image I'm seeing is one company who is getting on with the nuts and bolts and basics of drumming up demand and custom of their services and another one that is trying to do nice things and be a nice member of the community it serves.

Anybody could have told you that the spec they picked for the Tourismo's was poor. The Tourismo is a great vehicle but the spec that they picked was just dire. Considering the amount that they paid for them as well. I never understood the idea of buying a premium marque of vehicle and then specifying it with what is basically a budget interior. It makes no sense whatsoever. When I heard that they were getting Tourismo's I thought it would be a good step forward, but in reality, they're bought a more expensive coach than the Panthers, and then essentially pinched as many pennies as they could on the spec. Cent wise and Euro Foolish basically.

Also nobody required them to use the wheelchair option that they did for the Tourismo, that again was a management choice, if you are going to have that kind of wheelchair lift then of course it is going to take up a fair amount of luggage space. Couple that with cramming in 55 high density seats in the shortest 12m Tourismo in the range isn't going to help either is it. If they went for a longer version, they would end up with an extra locker of valuable luggage space, so again it comes down to poor decision making from whoever signed the spec off.

Another expensive mistake.

The amount that they have spent on vehicles for the Derry route (which are unsuitable according to another poster) and acquiring Airporter and everything else that goes with it is staggering. I remain completely sceptical that the Belfast to Derry Leg can ever offer a return on the investment that they have made on it. If they're throwing yet another set of vehicles at it, it beggars belief, especially when they have surrendered frequency on the successful Belfast to Dublin section of the route, which Dublin Express with it's far superior vehicles, have only been too happy to take care of.

In relation to Dervla going, I have to say she was an incredibly likeable person and I think she'll do well in Go-Ahead Ireland. She had time for everyone and was generally someone I know many speak highly of and she did bring a number of good traits and forward-thinking ideas to Aircoach. However there were some questionable decisions commercially under her leadership and the lack of any experienced commercial senior manager in the business with experience in the Irish Bus and Coach industry in her time really showed. But at least she did have experience in the Bus industry all be it in the UK, despite by her own admission, having no previous commercial experience.

The unfortunate thing is the current MD has no bus industry experience at all anywhere before taking her current role and she has now been in the post six months and honestly I'm yet to see any positive changes. What I have seen though is a reduction in transparency. Under the new MDs leadership Aircoach have no coach tracker on their website, no longer post cancellations and today they cancelled an entire day of service on the 706X without any kind of announcement at all which meant anyone who didn't book a ticket ahead or read here, would have never known their services were not running. Essentially potential walk-up customers were abandoned by the roadside today, and that is unacceptable and the NTA need to be issuing a serious fine for things like this. Public transport users deserve better.

That's what I meant. Awful typo! Thanks for correcting!

Just a result of what happens when you write on your mobile quickly without a lot of time, see also the slip I made on the date. no need for any conspiracy theories.

I did notice however the TFI API data for Aircoach says the current timetable on the 702 to Greystones is only valid until 22nd April, which suggests that could be getting a revision post that.