Is there any plans for new routes?
Unlikely, the financial performance needs to be taken in context with what has happened in the last two accounting periods which influenced both the last two accounts heavily.
Accounts from April 2012 - April 2013 (Lost €3.3m)
Most of the loss was due to the fact they bet fairly heavily on Belfast and Cork to Dublin non-stop intercity routes at high frequency in the early part of this period, much higher than the rest of competition and discounted online flat fares to build a customer base and attract passengers from other operators and the train and the car.
There was also a marketing spend on local radio, in the local press and on social media and online media and in other areas for these routes, something which the company have not been able to do in the past and whilst the Cork route started to pick up good loads about 6 months into it starting, the Belfast route didn't really take off during these accounts.
The start up costs of these routes, the marketing and the passenger numbers, particularly in the early days of these routes, coupled with the fare structure to attract passengers away from the competition really played big parts in the big loss.
In December 2012 they canceled one under performing airport route that was making a fairly large loss cut the frequency back slightly on two other airport routes that were marginal performance wise and revised fare structures on the same.
There was also an appointment of an external marketing company for the first time to handle marketing, an onboard agreement with Ryanair signed, a new website and app developed.
Accounts from April 2013 - April 2014 (Lost €775k)
Right at the start of this accounting period the original Aircoach route Ballsbridge (ever 30 mins) was canceled. A lot of the stops were served by the Leopardstown route (every 15 mins) and the ones that were not, were included on the Greystones route (hourly) which saw them being served at a halved frequency and a reduction in daily vehicle requirements.
In this period the Cork intercity route really took off. It's now a very well performing route, even at 17 times a day in each direction it needs several reliefs a day on Friday's and Sundays and passenger numbers continued to grow.This is whilst the direct competition can only sustain 6 services a day and despite the marketing spend being reigned in for this service, it continued to increase passenger numbers by word of mouth.
The Belfast route also moved from being loss making in this period to being marginally loss making and continued to be marketed on local radio despite some pretty heavy competition marketing from Translink who started to match the Aircoach discounted fares and started to place strategically located adverts for their bus service near the Aircoach stop.
February 2014 saw a fare restructures on airport routes, with a new €6 city centre fare online, and €7 on bus fare, to replace the former flat rate of €7 online or offline fare, in an attempt to compete with Dublin Bus' flat €6 fare. Other fares were restructured with increases but introduced discounted online fares. Basically the former cash fares became the discounted online fares, with the cash fares increasing slightly.
Intercity routes also restructures. All cash fares increased by €1 single and €2 return. The online fare for Belfast, originally €10 changed to from €10 whilst the Cork fare, originally €9, changed to from €10. Basically for both services the cheapest tickets on any service are €10, but can rise to €12 depending on demand, instead of the flat rates previously employed.
However these results were improved by two days of strike action by Bus Eireann, which helped the Dublin to Cork and Dublin to Belfast route a little, but more particularly two days of Dublin Bus strike that led to Aircoach being the only operator between Dublin City and DUblin Airport, which is believed to have led to the best day of takings in the history of the company.
Since April 2014
Since April 2014, there was a two day Irish Rail strike and a one day Translink strike that helped the Belfast route mainly and the Dublin to Cork route a little.
The Belfast route has continued to pick up and is now more or less breaking even according to good sources and peak departures now have had their original 44 seat coaches allocated replace by bigger 53 seater longer coaches displaced from elsewhere in the fleet, the Cork route continues to perform well.
There is expecting to be an all out assault by Dublin Bus with new vehicles on the city centre route later this year, whilst the Greystones route is struggling a little due to the extra Ballsbridge stops which make the service unreliable, whilst a lot of industrial unrest in Bus Eireann and Dublin Bus over tendering for PSO contracts means there could be strikes ahead that Aircoach could benefit from.
