Bright Bus Airport Express service

[robertclark125]

Working on loan at our Edinburgh Airport shops, three days a week, for a few weeks, I decided to look at the Mcgills offering, loading wise, and Lothian.

At the times I looked, each Mcgills one had seven or eight people on, and Lothian had at least twenty. There were long queues for Lothian, and this was at different times.

Heading home today, on stagecoach east Scotland 747, there's 16 people on board, and we passed two Mcgills, each had seven.

 

[Jordan Adam]

I was in Edinburgh yesterday and saw quite a handful of Bright Bus Enviro300s on the Airport Express service in the city centre. All had good loads with each bus being at least 2/3rds full, however the vehicles are looking really scabby and poor considering they were only repainted a year and a half ago. Certainly going by those and the E200MMCs on the X38 which already have faded and flaking paint it does appear the quality of the paint jobs isn't the best.

 

[FlybeDash8Q400]

I was in Edinburgh yesterday and saw quite a handful of Bright Bus Enviro300s on the Airport Express service in the city centre. All had good loads with each bus being at least 2/3rds full, however the vehicles are looking really scabby and poor considering they were only repainted a year and a half ago. Certainly going by those and the E200MMCs on the X38 which already have faded and flaking paint it does appear the quality of the paint jobs isn't the best.

The StreetLites aren’t all that much better. Guess it depends who’s painting them.

AIRX is such a weird one. It’s never consistently busy and it’s hard to judge whether or not single decks or double decks are the way forward. There’s the obvious theory of growth with doubles but if the demand is never going to be there it’s tricky.

For me I don’t really see the two options (Lothian’s Airlink 100 and McGill’s Bright Bus AIRX) as competing as such now. They offer totally different things and the market appears to sustain these two different options. Both are consistently used, though I would probably say the Airlink seems more consistently busier across the day and still regularly fills an XLB. I have yet to see 8951 full, but I have occasionally seen an E300 full, albeit far less frequently than an Airlink XLB.

The AIRX can be busy, but as you say the E300’s are old and tired now so what happens when they need to be replaced I’m not so sure. Lothian are reportedly due a new batch of Airlink’s soon too so you’ll have a mostly 13 year gap in vehicles between each operator. Clearly a budget operation would need to be full pretty much all the time to ever justify the depreciation of new vehicles, so that seems unlikely. I guess second hand or transfer from elsewhere may be the preferred option going forward, likely something along the lines of E200mmc’s.

 

[Dfatcontroller]

The StreetLites aren’t all that much better. Guess it depends who’s painting them.

AIRX is such a weird one. It’s never consistently busy and it’s hard to judge whether or not single decks or double decks are the way forward. There’s the obvious theory of growth with doubles but if the demand is never going to be there it’s tricky.

For me I don’t really see the two options (Lothian’s Airlink 100 and McGill’s Bright Bus AIRX) as competing as such now. They offer totally different things and the market appears to sustain these two different options. Both are consistently used, though I would probably say the Airlink seems more consistently busier across the day and still regularly fills an XLB. I have yet to see 8951 full, but I have occasionally seen an E300 full, albeit far less frequently than an Airlink XLB.

The AIRX can be busy, but as you say the E300’s are old and tired now so what happens when they need to be replaced I’m not so sure. Lothian are reportedly due a new batch of Airlink’s soon too so you’ll have a mostly 13 year gap in vehicles between each operator. Clearly a budget operation would need to be full pretty much all the time to ever justify the depreciation of new vehicles, so that seems unlikely. I guess second hand or transfer from elsewhere may be the preferred option going forward, likely something along the lines of E200mmc’s.

All it would take is another dozen new double deckers into Dundee to see 69pl e400MMC transferred to AIRX.

 

[computerSaysNo]

AIRX is such a weird one. It’s never consistently busy and it’s hard to judge whether or not single decks or double decks are the way forward. There’s the obvious theory of growth with doubles but if the demand is never going to be there it’s tricky.

I think a minority of people buy in advance for Airlink as it's the established operator, may have more convenient stops on the way in to Edinburgh, and offers onward travel beyond the city centre on the same ticket. A different minority of people buy in advance for Brightbus as it's cheaper, and the tours you can buy with it are cheaper.

I'd guess most people turn up and either take the tram or take whichever bus is leaving first and isn't already full; in terms of leaving first this would usually be Airlink as it has a better frequency. I think though that if people see an Airlink bus which is already full or has a queue to get on then they'll go to Brightbus (assuming it's not full/no queue), and if the tram isn't running and acceptance for people who already have tram tickets is with Airlink then Airlink is going to fill up very quickly, so in those situations I can see Brightbus having a very sudden and significant uplift in passenger numbers. For situations like that I can see that it would be very desirable to have double deck buses to get the maximum number of passengers on.

 

[Butts]

According to my Driver tonight the whole service is being pulled on November 14th.

 

[Tartanarmy85]

According to my Driver tonight the whole service is being pulled on November 14th.

The service is fully gone on November 14th so no return are valid after this date

 

[Butts]

The service is fully gone on November 14th so no return are valid after this date

Standby for Lothian to jack up the 100 prices again !!

 

[Stan Drews]

According to my Driver tonight the whole service is being pulled on November 14th.

That is correct. It has been discussed quite a bit over on the Midland Bluebird thread, since it was announced to staff last month.

 

[NorthClyde320]

That is correct. It has been discussed quite a bit over on the Midland Bluebird thread, since it was announced to staff last month.

I thought the mods would have moved it all over to here or just combined both threads into just one.

 

[Mgameing123]

One small luggage rack!!!!!! Not legal to fill the aisles with luggage, how poorly thought through is this?

You can just use the seat next to you or the wheelchair space.

 

[CSB0241]

I thought the mods would have moved it all over to here or just combined both threads into just one.

I’m surprised this thread hasn’t been closed yet, to be completely blunt.