Flixbus Discussion

[nick291]

Another join from the GoAhead group.
Plymouth Citybus will be joining with 2 Yutong GT12s in Spring 2026.

FlixBus and Plymouth Citybus Partner on New Coach Services from Spring 2026

Plymouth Citybus and FlixBus have announced a new partnership, with long-distance coach services expected to begin in spring 2026.

bus-news.com

I know it's a different operator entirely, but I'm surprised Berry's are clinging onto their services still given all the westcountry opco's now doing Flix work.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 Jan 2026 ==

Also does this mean that Plymouth CityCoach are coming back slowly? I know PCB/GAC took over Dartline not too long ago

 

[markymark2000]

I know it's a different operator entirely, but I'm surprised Berry's are clinging onto their services still given all the westcountry opco's now doing Flix work.

Flixbus are in a mass expansion phase. They need all the vehicles and operators that they can get. They won't just remove an operator for the sake of it especially at this stage.

 

[henryb]

I know it's a different operator entirely, but I'm surprised Berry's are clinging onto their services still given all the westcountry opco's now doing Flix work.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 Jan 2026 ==

Also does this mean that Plymouth CityCoach are coming back slowly? I know PCB/GAC took over Dartline not too long ago

Plymouth city coach won’t be coming back - all coaching is under Dartline now, the ex Plymouth coaches have been liveried up accordingly.

I wonder what these will go on considering the typical 3x day 1x night bus service. Perhaps a competitor to the 501 which NX have been cutting or up towards Birmingham? (Although that Bristol to Birmingham stretch is well served)

 

[j_walker1804]

There’s a Plymouth - Nottingham run in the works coming.

 

[henryb]

There’s a Plymouth - Nottingham run in the works coming.

Interesting choice - I assume it will be Plymouth - Exe - Bristol - Birmingham - Nottingham

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 Jan 2026 ==

Interesting choice - I assume it will be Plymouth - Exe - Bristol - Birmingham - Nottingham

The only route they will be running as they will need the 2 vehicles to run both journeys

 

[Cheers Drive]

I've just been horrifying myself with FlixBus's reliability. I tried to use it to commute last week, and after the cancellations started happening I realised that on most days a third of the journeys don't run.

I'd got the confidence to rely on it because I'd noticed that some journeys were selling out, and I thought this meant they were doing well and wouldn't pull the service and leave me needing to buy 3 months of train tickets once the cheap ones were gone! I now realise that these are proposed cancellations that won't be notified to people that have booked until 24h30m before departure

I used FlixBus to get to Luton for a job interview as it was £50 return to corneall albeit a 24 hour round trip with 9/10 hour waits they sent me a message 15 mins before it left Newquay at 10pm saying trip cancelled I luckily as savvy so I kept checking as they have zero customer service and I mean this no one in uk at all ..and luckily I could see that it was just my Heathrow to Luton part that was cancelled no reason why just a standard rebook link that didn’t work anyway anyone else would have thought whole trip was canecelled and had to abandon the journey and be stranded in Newquay all night.
So I managed to just make the Newquay departure and have to say first bus running flix is a massive standard up from other operators its a different level of professionalism and cleanliness even though those yutongs have the worst reclining seats ever like it’s very lucky you don’t end up with drinks all over your lap zero leg room and very unpleasant.
So I stayed on til Victoria as this made connections easier but even then the flix site tells you and maps you to go in the non customer portion of the coach station I missed my 7am connection walking back and forth luckily didn’t have to pay another £11 as I had a decent driver and I explained I’m also a PCV driver.
The journey back was at 11.59pm so as soon as they boarded us all they then announced the journey is terminating at Bristol because of weather. Everyone was stuck as they didn’t even tell the driver so most got off and stayed in London I stayed and booked a hotel for 3am until the coach they text me to say was at 12.10 when I got to Bristol for the 12.10 there was no service until 3am the following day as it left at 11.10 on time … the customer service is atrocious and I gave up trying to get a refund for my uber and hotel as it states online everywhere that they will never pay up for such things even though it is legal responsibility under uk law which they have been warned about already. I ended up having to pay another £45 for NATEXP and that still took 7 plus hours what a joke. So my message to anyone here is NEVER RELY OR USE FLIXBUS ever they left so many people abandoned and scared in random places and their entire system is just a basic ai bot it’s absolutely disgusting and I foresee them losing their uk operations licences and I hope they do
Pls never use flix NATEXP slightly more expensive but reliable and professional and staff to talk to

 

[swinny1990]

Interesting choice - I assume it will be Plymouth - Exe - Bristol - Birmingham - Nottingham

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 Jan 2026 ==


The only route they will be running as they will need the 2 vehicles to run both journeys

What coaches will be used

 

[MotCO]

I used FlixBus to get to Luton for a job interview as it was £50 return to corneall albeit a 24 hour round trip with 9/10 hour waits they sent me a message 15 mins before it left Newquay at 10pm saying trip cancelled I luckily as savvy so I kept checking as they have zero customer service and I mean this no one in uk at all ..and luckily I could see that it was just my Heathrow to Luton part that was cancelled no reason why just a standard rebook link that didn’t work anyway anyone else would have thought whole trip was canecelled and had to abandon the journey and be stranded in Newquay all night.
So I managed to just make the Newquay departure and have to say first bus running flix is a massive standard up from other operators its a different level of professionalism and cleanliness even though those yutongs have the worst reclining seats ever like it’s very lucky you don’t end up with drinks all over your lap zero leg room and very unpleasant.
So I stayed on til Victoria as this made connections easier but even then the flix site tells you and maps you to go in the non customer portion of the coach station I missed my 7am connection walking back and forth luckily didn’t have to pay another £11 as I had a decent driver and I explained I’m also a PCV driver.
The journey back was at 11.59pm so as soon as they boarded us all they then announced the journey is terminating at Bristol because of weather. Everyone was stuck as they didn’t even tell the driver so most got off and stayed in London I stayed and booked a hotel for 3am until the coach they text me to say was at 12.10 when I got to Bristol for the 12.10 there was no service until 3am the following day as it left at 11.10 on time … the customer service is atrocious and I gave up trying to get a refund for my uber and hotel as it states online everywhere that they will never pay up for such things even though it is legal responsibility under uk law which they have been warned about already. I ended up having to pay another £45 for NATEXP and that still took 7 plus hours what a joke. So my message to anyone here is NEVER RELY OR USE FLIXBUS ever they left so many people abandoned and scared in random places and their entire system is just a basic ai bot it’s absolutely disgusting and I foresee them losing their uk operations licences and I hope they do
Pls never use flix NATEXP slightly more expensive but reliable and professional and staff to talk to

So someone in authority decided to terminate the coach short, but there were no customer services to support and advise passengers? What sort of operation is that?

 

[nick291]

What coaches will be used

Yutong GT12's

 

[markymark2000]

I used FlixBus to get to Luton for a job interview as it was £50 return to corneall albeit a 24 hour round trip with 9/10 hour waits they sent me a message 15 mins before it left Newquay at 10pm saying trip cancelled I luckily as savvy so I kept checking as they have zero customer service and I mean this no one in uk at all ..and luckily I could see that it was just my Heathrow to Luton part that was cancelled no reason why just a standard rebook link that didn’t work anyway

While they don't have any UK support, you can call their general helpline. Manned in Germany I think.

Their system of cancelling though is poor, I agree. Not just in examples like yours where only a section of a journey has been cancelled, but if Flix upload a trip to the system then have to remove it and re add it, they cancel everyones tickets rather than just transferring the tickets. Seen many instances of people being caught out by that.

The journey back was at 11.59pm so as soon as they boarded us all they then announced the journey is terminating at Bristol because of weather. Everyone was stuck as they didn’t even tell the driver so most got off and stayed in London I stayed and booked a hotel for 3am until the coach they text me to say was at 12.10 when I got to Bristol for the 12.10 there was no service until 3am the following day as it left at 11.10 on time … the customer service is atrocious and I gave up trying to get a refund for my uber and hotel as it states online everywhere that they will never pay up for such things even though it is legal responsibility under uk law which they have been warned about already.

Was this by any chance when there were weather warning in Cornwall? The same days when most bus operators cancelled services because it was a risk to their staff and to passengers safety?

That said, they are very much the Ryanair of coaches. They rely on you not knowing your rights.

I foresee them losing their uk operations licences and I hope they do

Flixbus doesn't have an operators licence as they don't operate any coaches themselves and they don't register any services (McGills 090 is the only exception, but then all buses operate on the same ops licence as the route is registered). Everything is contracted out to a 3rd party to operate.

Pls never use flix NATEXP slightly more expensive but reliable and professional and staff to talk to

Not in my experience. They can both be as bad as eachother.

 

[SheikhYerboote]

Looking to get a flixbus to Heathrow from Gloucester / Cheltenham on Saturday and have been reading about cancellations and delays. Can anyone tells me who runs this service for flixbus and are they using Yutongs ? Many thanks

 

[markymark2000]

Looking to get a flixbus to Heathrow from Gloucester / Cheltenham on Saturday and have been reading about cancellations and delays. Can anyone tells me who runs this service for flixbus and are they using Yutongs ? Many thanks

That route is operated by Fernhill and Eurocoaches. Eurocoaches could vary but likely to be their Volvo 9700 (1st and 3rd trips from Gloucester/Cheltenham). The Fernhill bus will be a Yutong (2nd and 4th trips from Gloucester/Cheltenham)

 

[BULLSAREMAGIC]

I used FlixBus to get to Luton for a job interview as it was £50 return to corneall albeit a 24 hour round trip with 9/10 hour waits they sent me a message 15 mins before it left Newquay at 10pm saying trip cancelled I luckily as savvy so I kept checking as they have zero customer service and I mean this no one in uk at all ..and luckily I could see that it was just my Heathrow to Luton part that was cancelled no reason why just a standard rebook link that didn’t work anyway anyone else would have thought whole trip was canecelled and had to abandon the journey and be stranded in Newquay all night.
So I managed to just make the Newquay departure and have to say first bus running flix is a massive standard up from other operators its a different level of professionalism and cleanliness even though those yutongs have the worst reclining seats ever like it’s very lucky you don’t end up with drinks all over your lap zero leg room and very unpleasant.
So I stayed on til Victoria as this made connections easier but even then the flix site tells you and maps you to go in the non customer portion of the coach station I missed my 7am connection walking back and forth luckily didn’t have to pay another £11 as I had a decent driver and I explained I’m also a PCV driver.
The journey back was at 11.59pm so as soon as they boarded us all they then announced the journey is terminating at Bristol because of weather. Everyone was stuck as they didn’t even tell the driver so most got off and stayed in London I stayed and booked a hotel for 3am until the coach they text me to say was at 12.10 when I got to Bristol for the 12.10 there was no service until 3am the following day as it left at 11.10 on time … the customer service is atrocious and I gave up trying to get a refund for my uber and hotel as it states online everywhere that they will never pay up for such things even though it is legal responsibility under uk law which they have been warned about already. I ended up having to pay another £45 for NATEXP and that still took 7 plus hours what a joke. So my message to anyone here is NEVER RELY OR USE FLIXBUS ever they left so many people abandoned and scared in random places and their entire system is just a basic ai bot it’s absolutely disgusting and I foresee them losing their uk operations licences and I hope they do
Pls never use flix NATEXP slightly more expensive but reliable and professional and staff to talk to

Having driven coaches for both National Express contractors and for Flixbus personally from a drivers point of view National Express seem a much more professional operation who on many but not all occasions have made real effforts to get passengers to their destination as promptly as possible

 

[dmncf]

Interesting choice - I assume it will be Plymouth - Exe - Bristol - Birmingham - Nottingham

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 Jan 2026 ==


The only route they will be running as they will need the 2 vehicles to run both journeys

While routine maintenance could be done at times when the 2 vehicles aren't scheduled to be on the road, I can't believe that a Peak Vehicle Requirement (PVR) of 2 can be sustained with a Plymouth CityCoach's fleet of 2 FlixBus liveried Yutong GT12 vehicles. Are FlixBus more tolerant than National Express of operators running coaches in non-FlixBus livery?
Perhaps I'm wrong, but I thought that a typical National Express operator had at least half a dozen National Express liveried vehicles - making the PVR easier to meet - whereas FlixBus have had a few recent press releases about fleets of just 2 vehicles.

 

[markymark2000]

While routine maintenance could be done at times when the 2 vehicles aren't scheduled to be on the road, I can't believe that a Peak Vehicle Requirement (PVR) of 2 can be sustained with a Plymouth CityCoach's fleet of 2 FlixBus liveried Yutong GT12 vehicles. Are FlixBus more tolerant than National Express of operators running coaches in non-FlixBus livery?

It's not like NatEx where they take a pretty strong line against having non livery buses on the network. Flix are more tolerant to it, but I believe that they do deduct still for non livery vehicle. I know Eurocoaches used to have 2-3 vehicle duties but only 1 Flixbus coach. It was also common for Berrys Coaches 078 to have at least one Berrys coach on it rather than a Flix branded vehicle.

 

[MotCO]

Can Flixbus liveried vehicles be used on non-Flixbus duties?

 

[coach fan]

Can Flixbus liveried vehicles be used on non-Flixbus duties?

No idea but they’ve most certainly been used on private hire to Glastonbury last year.

 

[henryb]

While routine maintenance could be done at times when the 2 vehicles aren't scheduled to be on the road, I can't believe that a Peak Vehicle Requirement (PVR) of 2 can be sustained with a Plymouth CityCoach's fleet of 2 FlixBus liveried Yutong GT12 vehicles. Are FlixBus more tolerant than National Express of operators running coaches in non-FlixBus livery?
Perhaps I'm wrong, but I thought that a typical National Express operator had at least half a dozen National Express liveried vehicles - making the PVR easier to meet - whereas FlixBus have had a few recent press releases about fleets of just 2 vehicles.

Simmons of Norwich have 1 coach for their 1 PVR route so their unbranded for Flix coach is used

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 Jan 2026 ==

While routine maintenance could be done at times when the 2 vehicles aren't scheduled to be on the road, I can't believe that a Peak Vehicle Requirement (PVR) of 2 can be sustained with a Plymouth CityCoach's fleet of 2 FlixBus liveried Yutong GT12 vehicles. Are FlixBus more tolerant than National Express of operators running coaches in non-FlixBus livery?
Perhaps I'm wrong, but I thought that a typical National Express operator had at least half a dozen National Express liveried vehicles - making the PVR easier to meet - whereas FlixBus have had a few recent press releases about fleets of just 2 vehicles.

Plymouth City Coach as a brand has now been removed and all coaching whether Plymouth or Exeter is now under Dartline

 

[Cheers Drive]

Having driven coaches for both National Express contractors and for Flixbus personally from a drivers point of view National Express seem a much more professional operation who on many but not all occasions have made real effforts to get passengers to their destination as promptly as possible

Yes I drove for Nat exp buses in Birmingham and I have to say that as a company they are top tier the organisational skills as a whole is impressive they have some of the best maintenance I’ve known from an employer if I reported something they would literally come and get it immediately they’d be waiting on a stop with another vehicle and engineers and take the bus in and next day fault was fixed all their tridents that were 15 years old drove like brand new. I had an issue with demisters one day on an enviro400 and they told me to stop immediately and transfer passengers and came out and fixed it where as other companies wanted time to drive it in empty. The engineering department was all so well laid out and clean and if you were running late they had system in place to make sure you didn’t go over your hours and would call you up on the radio and divert you or cut the service in to an E route (i.e 47E) which meant it was a partial route. Such a great company I was so annoyed that Stagecoach shareholders went with DWS over Them because Stagecoach would be a completely different company now.

 

[AndrewTaylor95]

Yes I drove for Nat exp buses in Birmingham and I have to say that as a company they are top tier the organisational skills as a whole is impressive they have some of the best maintenance I’ve known from an employer if I reported something they would literally come and get it immediately they’d be waiting on a stop with another vehicle and engineers and take the bus in and next day fault was fixed all their tridents that were 15 years old drove like brand new. I had an issue with demisters one day on an enviro400 and they told me to stop immediately and transfer passengers and came out and fixed it where as other companies wanted time to drive it in empty. The engineering department was all so well laid out and clean and if you were running late they had system in place to make sure you didn’t go over your hours and would call you up on the radio and divert you or cut the service in to an E route (i.e 47E) which meant it was a partial route. Such a great company I was so annoyed that Stagecoach shareholders went with DWS over Them because Stagecoach would be a completely different company now.

Stagecoach are a shambles the now

 

[johncrossley]

What's the point of booking with Flixbus if you have to pay extra to go by train or National Express when it is cancelled? You might need a hotel and/or taxis as well. They shouldn't be allowed to simply refund you the price of the ticket. Lucky that I can see the extent of the cancellations on this thread, whereas most passengers just find out the hard way. Flixbus has been a huge disappointment since it started in the UK.

 

[EYFanatic]

Can Flixbus liveried vehicles be used on non-Flixbus duties?

Yes... Some have popped up on rail replacement in Manchester

 

[James H]

I'm currently weekly commuting to London on a route where I have the choice of train, NatEx and Flixbus. I'm using a combination of all three, but I like the fact that Flixbus's tickets are exchangeable / refundable (with the % fee increasing nearer the time of travel), so I've been able to shift bookings around as plans have changed, whereas with rail Advances and the cheapest NatEx tickets, if plans change you're out of luck.

 

[A S Leib]

What's the point of booking with Flixbus if you have to pay extra to go by train or National Express when it is cancelled? You might need a hotel and/or taxis as well. They shouldn't be allowed to simply refund you the price of the ticket. Lucky that I can see the extent of the cancellations on this thread, whereas most passengers just find out the hard way. Flixbus has been a huge disappointment since it started in the UK.

(I'm aware that this is focusing on Flixbus in the UK) I had to buy a new ticket due to Flix-related issues yesterday, although not in a way for which they were responsible (Leipzig S-Bahn delays of around 25 minutes leading to a missed connection at Halle(Saale), with the Flixtrain leaving ten minutes late).

I've also missed a Flixbus service at Saarbrücken due to train delays; thankfully, as I didn't work it out at the time, I also missed a Forbach train so going there by train for a longer connection time wouldn't have worked.

 

[markymark2000]

What's the point of booking with Flixbus if you have to pay extra to go by train or National Express when it is cancelled? You might need a hotel and/or taxis as well. They shouldn't be allowed to simply refund you the price of the ticket. Lucky that I can see the extent of the cancellations on this thread, whereas most passengers just find out the hard way.

I will say that there have been some localised issues with cancellations (Whippets were bad for it, Cozys struggle a bit on the 066, Belle Vue had issues) but it's by no means a network wise thing. There's currently 21 live operators on the network operating hundreds of trips per day, and the cancellations aren't very often overall.

Flixbus has been a huge disappointment since it started in the UK.

April and May won't be a disappointment. LOTS of new links coming through, some of which are routes which even NatEx don't offer.

 

[Temple Meads]

What's the point of booking with Flixbus if you have to pay extra to go by train or National Express when it is cancelled? You might need a hotel and/or taxis as well. They shouldn't be allowed to simply refund you the price of the ticket. Lucky that I can see the extent of the cancellations on this thread, whereas most passengers just find out the hard way. Flixbus has been a huge disappointment since it started in the UK.

I was travelling to Reading on a London-bound 045 service which was terminated at Bristol after being delayed in major traffic on the M5 (the driver said he wouldn't have had enough driving hours to get back to Taunton on the return trip), this was the email I received from Flix:

"Dear Temple Meads,

We regret to inform you that there is no alternative Flix service available for your trip. Please use another bus, train (2nd class), or consider booking a hotel (up to €80 per person).

To receive reimbursement, please submit your receipts via help.flixbus.com.

We apologize for any inconvenience caused and thank you for your understanding.

– Your Flix team"

The refund process was pretty straightforward so from our perspective it was a good outcome, but the train we caught was the last one of the day, and it would have been rather inconvenient to be staying in Bristol rather than Reading. I believe that the other passengers who were travelling to London were rebooked onto a later service.

Services terminating short seems to be more common with First than it was with Berrys, and doesn't really inspire much confidence...

 

[nick291]

Services terminating short seems to be more common with First than it was with Berrys, and doesn't really inspire much confidence...

No worse than their bus services in Bristol then

 

[Cheers Drive]

What's the point of booking with Flixbus if you have to pay extra to go by train or National Express when it is cancelled? You might need a hotel and/or taxis as well. They shouldn't be allowed to simply refund you the price of the ticket. Lucky that I can see the extent of the cancellations on this thread, whereas most passengers just find out the hard way. Flixbus has been a huge disappointment since it started in the UK.

I also worked at whippets in Cambridge and would talk to all the FlixBus drivers most gave me a lift home as they would be spare OR most often the trip was cancelled because there wasn’t enough bookings lots of times they would be cancelled minutes before they were meant to be out in service not to mention that most flix drivers would also make the passengers put their own luggage in and the language they would call the passengers not nice very racist remarks from a lot of flix drivers and they didn’t even have a scanner to scan tickets Ots a complete shamble how it’s run and the operators don’t seem to care which is why it was nice to see first bus operating as they have a higher standard but I just hope first dont regret it as flix really doesn’t care at all cancelling for low bookings leaves people in very nasty late night areas stuck it’s disgusting

 

[buscoaster]

Flix will never cancel for low number of bookings, but if they are short of a vehicle or drivers, the operator will try to choose the trip with the lowest patronage to cancel. Interesting what you note about Whippet - they are no longer on the network of course, and maybe this is why

 

[WelshBluebird]

I was travelling to Reading on a London-bound 045 service which was terminated at Bristol after being delayed in major traffic on the M5 (the driver said he wouldn't have had enough driving hours to get back to Taunton on the return trip), this was the email I received from Flix:

"Dear Temple Meads,

We regret to inform you that there is no alternative Flix service available for your trip. Please use another bus, train (2nd class), or consider booking a hotel (up to €80 per person).

To receive reimbursement, please submit your receipts via help.flixbus.com.

We apologize for any inconvenience caused and thank you for your understanding.

– Your Flix team"

The refund process was pretty straightforward so from our perspective it was a good outcome, but the train we caught was the last one of the day, and it would have been rather inconvenient to be staying in Bristol rather than Reading. I believe that the other passengers who were travelling to London were rebooked onto a later service.

Services terminating short seems to be more common with First than it was with Berrys, and doesn't really inspire much confidence...

Appreciate you obviously didnt go down the hotel route, but I cant help think €80 per person is problematic. If you're on your own that isnt going to get you much in bristol at such short notice.