Long distance coaches - suspension during Coronavirus Pandemic

[whole diary]

[grahame]

An update on the state of play at Snap, Berry's, Megabus and National Express

Snap

Last updated 24th March 2020

Note: The Government has now advised everyone to stay at home unless it’s absolutely essential that you travel.

As the safety of our customers and operators is of paramount importance to us, we have made the decision to cancel all trips from Tuesday 24th March until the end of August.

Megabus

Coronavirus Update: megabus services suspended in England and Wales but continue to run in Scotland

Coronavirus update

• megabus services suspended in England and Wales
• megabus services within Scotland and some partner services continue to run

Following the government’s guidance to stay at home and stop all non-essential travel, we’ve taken the tough decision to temporarily suspend our megabus services in England and Wales with no services running after Sunday 5 April. But we’ll still be continuing to run our megabus services within Scotland, please check our website for details and for other services, such as the Oxford Tube and other partner routes which may still be available.

Berrys Coaches Services

Dear Loyal Customers,

We have several customers who have booked journeys on our Superfast services or other trips which are due to occur during current Covid 19 outbreak. Following our email yesterday evening, in which we mentioned that will not be operating until 22nd May. We will keep this under review.

We will be contacting those customers who have paid for tickets during this period in order to arrange refunds or alternatively rearrange their journeys for a later date. However, so that we protect our staff during and ensure we do not encourage the spread of the virus during the lockdown, we expect that this contact will be delayed until the Government restrictions are lifted so that we can limit the number of staff in our offices. We hope that you understand the reasons for this approach. If anyone has any issues or concerns then please contact our main office number on 01823 331 356.

Kind Regards
Stuart Berry

National Express

In line with Government advice, we are asking all customers to stop all non-essential travel with immediate effect. As of Tuesday 24 March, we are running a reduced service for those with essential travel needs only.

If you're still planning to travel with us, we are putting the following measures in place. The health and wellbeing of our customers and staff remains our top priority.

An extensive reduction to our timetables for essential travel only.
No staff at the majority of our coach stations.
Limiting capacity on services to 50% to help social distancing
Enhanced cleaning of vehicles, ticket vending machines and other customer touchpoints at our stations.
We have also had to cancel a number of event services and suspended our European services. If you have already booked with us, please see the options below.

[IndustryInsider]

National Express stopping completely next week I believe?

[grahame]

National Express stopping completely next week I believe?

Yes - just picked that up in parallel with you - https://www.nationalexpress.com/en/help/live-service-updates :

Latest service updates

In line with Government advice on COVID-19, we have been running a reduced network for essential travel only. However, as more people rightly stay at home, we have decided to temporarily suspend all services from 23:59 on Sunday 5 April.

For those of you that have an upcoming journey with us before 31 May, if you would like to amend your booking, you can do so for free, for travel any time in the next 12 months. There is no need to contact us straight away, just complete our ticket amendment form before your original outward journey and get back in touch with us when you’re ready to travel again.

If you do not wish to amend your ticket to another date, we will fully refund you. If you haven’t already done so, please complete our refund form and we will process your refund within 28 days.

[IndustryInsider]

Not long distance, but Oxford Tube doing the same.

[grahame]

Stagecoach Falcon ceasing after 5th April for the rest of the month - no link, but reliable source and makes sense.

[grahame]

From Coach and Bus Week

National Express Group issues trading update to 31 March 2020

[snip]

Business update

UK^▸ (United Kingdom) Services continue to operate at much lower volumes:

NEG are running 46% of our West Midlands bus operations, after agreement with Transport for West Midlands, to sustain an emergency key worker network;

All National Express coach services were temporarily until further notice from 5 April 2020

All variable costs have been reduced in-line with service reductions; The suspension of NEGs coach network allows them to significantly reduce their costs of operations whilst demand is so low, thereby strengthening the Group’s overall operating cash position; All capital expenditure is on hold.

NEGs cash flow position has strengthened since our 19 March 2020 statement, where we said we expected our cash flow to be positive over the next three months.

NEG have secured a further £800 million of additional facilities, including £600 million from Her Majesty’s Treasury’s and the Bank of England’s Covid Corporate Financing Facility (CCFF). We now have over £200 million of cash on deposit and in addition, undrawn committed facilities of over £1 billion. These extra facilities provide NEG with further security through all foreseeable scenarios during this temporary shutdown.

The Board recognises the importance of a dividend to its shareholders but equally balances this with the exceptional circumstances that the Covid-19 pandemic represents. Given these exceptional circumstances, the Board is withdrawing its recommendation to our shareholders to declare a final dividend for the year ending 31 December 2019. As such, the resolution proposing the declaration of the final dividend in the Company’s Notice of 2020 AGM^▸ (Annual General Meeting) will not be put to the vote at the AGM. The Board will keep future dividends under review and will restart payments when it is appropriate to do so.

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