You've no doubt heard the phrase "the customer is always right", and there is a valid argument that this is indeed the case. In the coach hire industry, you're not just dealing with the customer at the end of a phone or on email, you need to remember that there are many other customers behind the scenes travelling on the actual coach or minibus. We're privileged to work with excellent coach and minibus operators who all have the same respect and courtesy for the customers that we have. 

There was an incident the other day where one of our clients flights was delayed and was unable to contact us.  As we track all flights where we are doing an airport transfer we we able to seemlessly re-arrange the coach transportation to the new arrival time.  The customer was very thankful to us as he'd been concerned that he'd miss the airport transfer. It just shows that a bit of forward planning can save a heck of a lot of time in the long run - if we hadn't tracked the flight we would have potentially had to send the vehicle twice and also have the customers waiting around!

There's no getting away from it - even the coach and bus industry is not immune to political spin. Recently it was announced that First Bus Group were preferred bidder for the London 2012 Olympics.

Tessa Jowell, minister for the Olympics was quick to endorse the company saying: "As a company based in Aberdeen, this is yet another example of how businesses are benefitting from the London Olympic and Paralympic Games". So, the impression is that FirstGroup are a company based in Aberdeen, Scotland and the Olympics will bring benefit to that local area? Unfortunately, whilst FirstGroup are indeed based there, their operations stretches far into deepest darkest England: Indeed they are one of the largest bus operators in many local regions. 

Interestingly, one of the many tasks that the successful party will have is to manage and co-ordinate  the direct coach hire operations. If FirstGroup win, it is possible that they will be managing the coach hire services of their rivals Stagecoach and National Express.

Disclaimer: 

All respective companies trademarks acknowledged.

With the jump horse racing season fast approaching we're started to get lots of coach hire bookings for The Aintree Grand National, and the Cheltenham Gold Cup. If you are planning on going racing via coach travel it's vital that you pre-arrange coach parking at the racecourse - this is simple to do if you have prebooked tickets for a group of you travelling by coach.

Private Coach Hire is  a good alternative to using public transport such as the train and quite often it works out to be much cheaper and convenient. Visit Racecourse Express if you are interested in an Express Coach Service to Ayr Racecourse .

Be sure to arrange your coach hire quickly as availability for coach travel to these events quickly reduces and coach hire prices tend to increase.

Echoing our earlier similar blog entry last year about the Amphicoach, there is now the"amfibus", it is the latest wheeze by Britain's most famous busdriver, Brian Souter, the co-founder and chief executive of Stagecoach Group, one of the world's largest bus and railcompanies.

If it survives day two, it could becomeBritain's first timetabled amphibious bus service.

Souter believes the Clyde service could provea model for amphibious buses elsewhere in the UK. Stagecoach is confident theamfibus can navigate safely through the wash of boats and any other passengerferry which might yet replace the obsolete service.

The bus has been borrowed from its owners, theDutch waterborne tour operator Splashtours, which is planning to run a serviceon Rotterdam's Maas river. Steve Stewart, head of communications forStagecoach, is confident that passengers will have no need of seasicknesstablets on the amfibus's 200-metre trip over the Clyde. At £700,000, theamfibus is roughly three times the price of a standard passenger coach. Unfortunately, Coach Hire Booking won't be offering any similar services in the near future!

More information below 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2010/feb/08/amphibus-stagecoach-river-clyde 

Long time no post.. It's been an incredibly busy 6 months with Coach Hire Booking going from strength to strength. We've had the pleasure of meeting a number of coach operators who we've been dealing with over the years to let us further build on the existing relationships we have.

The winter, has seen some challenging weather to deal with but we're pleased to say that none of our services were affected - due in a large part to the excellent efforts of our coach operators.  Many of them were working late into the night and up early in the morning to clear yards of the snow.

We're already experiencing a surge of enquiries for 2010 so we expect marginal increases in price this year as demand outstrips supply.

Coach Hire Booking are now in a position to exclusively offer a choice of a 8 seater VIP minibus and a 16 seater executive minibus - these are available throughout the UK. 

Long time no blog. It's been an incredibly busy time for us here at coach hire booking, arranging coach hire for many of the festivals and sports events that are happening over the summer.

We're proud to be supplying coach hire to Glastonbury, V-Festival and many other festivals.   Due to the higher demand for coach hire in the summer, prices do rise so if you are planning on leaving the coach booking to the last minute, you may end up paying more that you would do by booking early.

We thought it would be useful (and amusing) to show how even the most experienced of coach hire drivers can get into a pickle if the area where the coach is picking up from is particularly awkward.  The excellent plugin used is this one - good work!

We're not sure how this Amphibious Coach would cope on a coach trip from Dover to Calais, but it certainly looks a good idea on paper. Dubbed as the worlds first true amphibious passenger coach it has been designed and built to stringent EU regulation. The cost of each coach is a cool £280,000...

Yesterday we were inundated with phone calls and requests for customers wishing to travel to Wembley to watch Everton play in the 2009 FA Cup Semi Finals after Everton beat Middlesbrough 2-1. As we deal with literally hundreds of coach operators on a monthly basis we have a unique capability within the coach hire market of understanding the availability of coach hire and the prices being commanded by coach operators.  Understandably when there is a massive demand for a limited resource (coaches), the price tends to increase - this is seen regularly for large sporting events, and music festivals where coach hire is used to transport large numbers of passengers.

Unfortunately many customers are not aware that prices can fluctuate so rapidly and as such can get rather animated on the phone as was the case on a few occasions yesterday. "Jumping on the band wagon" was a phrase used on a number of times when we explained coach hire prices had increased significantly - unfortunately we can not dictate prices that coach operators want for work, nor would we want to.  We have excellent relationships with coach operators througout the country which means we are able to ask for much cheaper coach prices than would normally be the case.

In July 2008, the city of London introduced the Low Emission Zone. The Low Emission Zone (LEZ) specifically affects older diesel-engined lorries, buses, coaches, large vans  and minibuses having over 8 seats.  Currently, all buses and coaches that have EURO III engines meet the LEZ standard. This is set to change in 2012 when vehicles must have engines meeting the EURO IV standard.

Coach operators that have coaches that are not EURO III compliant need to pay a £200 per day surcharge for entering the LEZ. Typically these are vehicles that are 10 years old or more, but quite often these are still coaches that are well maintained and useable.  The £200 LEZ charge is generally passed on to the passengers which can mean a 40% increase in price for visiting London by coach.  This means that passengers wishing to travel to London by coach need to either pay a premium on the quality of the coach or pay for the LEZ charge. Understandably, this may have an effect on the number of tourists visiting London by coach from other areas of the country.

Another potential impact of this policy is that it encourages coach hire companies to operate more in their own locality, as the potentially more lucrative market for coach trips to London will have reduced.