ith many passengers already complaining about the new Aircoach timetable, an ongoing dispute with drivers has resulted in up to a third of services being quietly cancelled.
According to the trade union Siptu, the drivers have been ‘working under protest’ since July 6th.
At the core of their claim is that Aircoach imposed major changes to their roster without agreement, with those affected stressing that they are not involved in any industrial action or work-to-rule protest.
For their part, Aircoach – who are owned by the multinational FirstGroup organisation – blamed the ongoing issues on an industry-wide shortage of drivers.
“As this is a temporary operational issue,” said an Aircoach spokesman, “we do not believe we are in contravention of the terms of our NTA licences on the impacted routes.” The National Transport Authority declined to comment.
A Sunday Independent analysis of the Aircoach timetable reveals that 54 separate services to and from the airport disappeared from Thursday’s booking system alone.
The worst impacted was Dublin Airport to Ballsbridge, which lost a third of its services on the day, whilst Leopardstown was missing 16 services and Greystones 14.
This all comes hot on the heels of Aircoach’s announcement las month of 65 new services to its three Dublin routes.
Claiming to be in the process of an “intense recruitment drive”, Aircoach stated, “We sincerely apologise to those affected by cancellations or delays, and we would like to assure passengers that returning our services to the highest standard is our top priority”.
You can take your chances with the Greystones 702 timetable right about here, with X apparently the only real update on cancellation. Alternatively, the Bus Eireann 133 airport coach is here,  and local taxis here.
I work at the airport. Use this service 3 mornings of the working week, and a lot of the early services were cancelled. Resulting in having to get the dart and Dublin bus to work. I have pre booked many of these services and wasn’t notified of the cancellations. I had asked why these particular services had been cancelled and they said they don’t know why. They also had said any cancellations made, will be put on their twitter page….
That’s what happens when private operators come into the market and don’t treat professional drivers with respect. We see the same thing with goahead routes dissappear in the bray area. Bus eireann and dublin bus while not perfect at least negotiations with staff on roster changes happen regularly.
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2 comments
I work at the airport. Use this service 3 mornings of the working week, and a lot of the early services were cancelled. Resulting in having to get the dart and Dublin bus to work. I have pre booked many of these services and wasn’t notified of the cancellations. I had asked why these particular services had been cancelled and they said they don’t know why. They also had said any cancellations made, will be put on their twitter page….
That’s what happens when private operators come into the market and don’t treat professional drivers with respect. We see the same thing with goahead routes dissappear in the bray area. Bus eireann and dublin bus while not perfect at least negotiations with staff on roster changes happen regularly.