Aircoach Route Changes and Service Issues

Having read the quotes from Aircoach in that article, I find them disappointing for several reasons in my opinion:

• They claim there are 65 new services but that in itself is quite misleading, as whilst their may be 65 new services over route 701 and 702, they've cancelled route 703 entirley and cut back the frequency on the 700, so the net number of extra services being provided versus the number before the changes, is considrably less than 65.
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• They say the route expansions came off the back off local demand and a lot of time and effort that the company has put in, which I don't really agree with. People wanted a more regular service to the airport on the 702/703, that is for sure, I don't think they wanted this new huge unwieldly 702 route that tries and service almost everyone on the outer parts of both the 702/703 routes to the point that they are slower than taking alternative means of transport even if it means changing mode. It also reads like customer blaming.
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• They are stating that an industry wide shortage of drivers is the problem, yet if that was the case, why did they plan an expansion of services that would need more drivers than before if they couldn't be sure of having the staff to service it? Doesn't make sense unless they were poorly planned or there has been an unpredicted increased level of staff turnover or reduction in driving staff availability that has happened in the last few weeks. If there has been a sudden increased drop off of avaliable driving staff over the past few weeks, surely there must be a reason behind this?
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• They say that they are comitted to supporting their customers, but they've abandoned their social media presence on Facebook and Instagram in terms of support, stopped providing phone support at weekends, reduced their weekday phone line opening hours and outsourced their customer service to the UK and told people to accept 7+ days as a response time to emails. Actions speak louder than words and their actions betray their words in this area
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• Lastly they say if customers want to contact them, they should do so via the contact us form. Well in the last few days Aircoach have removed the link to it from the Support section of their website and buried it in their FAQ section under the last FAQ under the title of 'unable to find your answer. It really does suggest they want to try and reduce the number of people who are contacting them.

There were 6 Irizar i6 vehicles delivered to First's Railair operation between Reading and Heathrow Airport over the past few days, I wonder how far off the Aircoach ones are from being delivered.

Aircoach drivers being balloted by SIPTU on Tuesday.

Drivers working for Aircoach will meet on Tuesday to vote on proposals on rostering and pay after talks between the company and Siptu on Monday. The union is to recommend a pay offer worth 4.8 per cent over nine months and new rostering and rotation arrangements to replace those introduced at the start of July, which have prompted drivers to work “under protest” in recent weeks.

The company, which is owned by UK operator Firstbus, is understood to have made changes to legacy rostering arrangements but these proved unpopular among many of its 150 drivers. Like many other companies in the sector Aircoach has faced challenges on the recruitment side, and it is hoped the new rostering arrangements combined with the proposed pay increase will help with staffing.

Aircoach operates a number of routes between Dublin Airport and destinations on the south of Dublin and Greystones, Co Wicklow, as well as longer distance routes to Derry, via Belfast, and Cork. It has had some issues with services in recent weeks, and while the majority operated normally on Monday its website listed 29 cancellations to its Dublin and Wicklow services for Tuesday, a further 28 on Wednesday and 12 on Thursday. Details of affected services can be found here.

The company described the issues as “temporary”.

Siptu transport sector organiser Andrew Quigley said he felt both the meeting with the company on Monday and the resulting proposals had been positive “but the members will have their say”.

The company also operates the buses between the Dublin Airport’s terminals and car parks under a contract with the DAA. About two-thirds of the drivers work on the well-known blue buses.

In mid-June Aircoach announced a significant increase in frequency on its Dublin and Wicklow routes with 65 additional services daily. The changes are understood to have been linked to the new rosters, and there have been reports of issues with cancellations since then.

The union says staff worked the shifts they were allocated while talks about the arrangements continued. “The drivers did whatever they were told to but there is a shortage of drivers generally and hopefully this deal, if approved, will put the company in a better position to recruit over the coming months.”

The company’s Irish operation reported a profit of €1.6 million for the year to March 2023, having sustained a loss of more than €1 million for the previous 12 months. It was badly hit by the impact of the pandemic on air travel but has recovered well.

The nine-month pay offer, which would conclude at the start of April 2025, is intended to bring the company’s Irish operation into line with the timing of pay arrangements in the UK.

The company was approached for comment.

Aircoach hikes fares by up to 50pc and apologises for disruption to services after driver roster row

Airport bus operator Aircoach has substantially increased its fares on a number of routes in recent weeks – with some tickets going up by as much as 50pc.

Passengers boarding without a pre-booked ticket are now charged €12 for a single fare from the airport to Dublin city centre – up from €8.

Online fares on the airport route have also increased substantially – from €7 to €10 for a single ticket and from €9 to €15 for a return.

The price increases follow a difficult period for the UK-owned operator in which it was forced to cancel a large number of Dublin services due to driver shortages.

When contacted by the Sunday Independent last month after it cancelled up to a third of timetabled services on certain days, the company blamed “operational issues”.

Trade union Siptu said drivers it represented were “working under protest” and performing the duties “enforced on them by the company”.

Drivers subsequently accepted a 4.8pc pay deal over nine months with new rosters to replace previous problematic arrangements.

In response to queries the company said “its pricing strategy reflects a commitment to accessibility and quality, and reaffirms its commitment to providing competitive fares that deliver value for its customers”.​

“We understand that recent circumstances have led to unexpected challenges, and we would like to take this opportunity again to sincerely apologise to customers affected by service disruptions stemming from an industry-wide shortage of drivers,” it said.

It added that it was “optimistic that our ongoing recruitment drive will help us minimise any further cancellations”.

“While we are making every effort to resolve the current challenges, we appreciate our customers' patience and understanding as we work towards restoring our services to full reliability.”

The poor commercial strategy by the company continues to be in evidence, they're charging €15 online (€10 single) and €24 (€12 single) on bus for a return to Dublin City Centre when you can book Dublin Express online for €8 single or €10 return. They're also certainly breaching advertising regulations by still advertising fares for €4.50 each way on their homepage too.

The management at Aircoach have little experience in running a road passenger transport and the commercial side of the operation have little experience of the commercial side of such operation as well and it shows. National Express are running rings around them on a daily basis and they seem to have no idea how to deal with that. There's no way things would be run the way they have been recently in Allen Parker's day for instance.

You also wonder why they are hiking prices so much. Yes there is inflation and a pay rise gone in to staff but it's not huge. It suggests that something has gone wrong with the cost base in the company. Aircoach always used to be a lean company, but seem to have a lot more non driving staff than they had several years ago and I wonder if costs have just spiralled to some degree.

It's time for First to sell up to someone who knows what they are doing. The operation has totally lost it's way and it's hard to see how it can be turned around whilst the current management team is in place. They are letting down colleagues in the business and customers alike. Lets hope the rumours about Airlink coming back sooner or later are true.

National Express may have done a good job with Dublin Express, but as with any corridor, as soon as one operator becomes dominant then there is less incentive to keep up a high standard of service, keep prices low and drive continual improvement. As a new entrant they were always going to have to put up a compelling commercial offer.

They also know that with the ongoing situation at Aircoach with roster issues, staff shortages, cutbacks to customer service, service cancellations, increased journey times and now significant price rises, Aircoach customers may well be looking for a more competitively priced and more reliable alternative so it's vital that they keep their standards high in order to do this and further strengthen their position on the corridors to put them in a place where they are very strongly beating them.

No doubt about it however, In the long term Dublin Express not having a tough competitor is not going to help though. We have seen CityLink increase fares on the Dublin to Galway corridor recently and it's naïve if you think that National Express continuing to take market share from Aircoach at the rate they are, won't end up the same way at some point in the future. What we need on the corridor is two operators who really are able to compete with each other whereas at the moment we're simply seeing one very commercially savvy operator school one that seems to be really struggling on multiple fronts.

I don't think that there is a market for three operators to run between the city centre unless one of them can really do something with a real USP, but even then it's not going to be a cinch. But at the moment I ask myself if Dublin Bus could do a better job on the corridor than Aircoach are dong recently and despite my support for Aircoach in the past and criticisms of Dublin Bus and Airlink over the years, it's hard to argue that they could do any worse than what Aircoach are doing now.

They would not get a license to the city centre, Dublin Bus applied for and got one a number of months ago which is why they would be in pole position to run a route and also would end up blocking any other potential new entrants. I wouldn't think Eirebus would be interested and the Airport Hopper crowd who are subcontracted the service by Dualway I wouldn't have faith in either.

Also I don't think any of the local operators would have the resources ability and funding to get a new service off the ground from scratch to compete with two existing operators, especially a well resourced one like Dublin Express. It would take a lot of money, whereas Dublin Bus have the contacts and the tour work assets that would allow them to market said service to their existing PSO passengers and also they would no doubt be able to get Bus Eireann and Irish Rail to assist with promoting the service in terms of onward travel.

The only way I can see another company coming in would be if Aircoach would sell up, but realistically that could only be a multi-national company that could do that.

RTE are very late on the game, this issue has been going on every day for over a month now and actually the cancellations lists are smaller now then they were at one point, so the problem is seemingly slightly better than it was at one point.

However at the same time, I've also noticed that not all services that have been cancelled have been published on that page based on own observations and social media.