Since the introduction of *800`s on the ECML and the dreadful seats I have voted with my feet and driven on 5 occasions since the summer so that`s approx £500 lost from just one punter. Just hope someone from DaFT / LNER reads these comments. i have left several comments on LNER`s site when asked for feedback on these "new and luxurious" trains
I think that's a perfectly valid data point describing a personal response, but I suspect that it's fairly atypical.
Here is an excerpt from LNER's filing for year ending 31 March 2019:
View attachment 72772
Revenue is stated to have increased compared to VTEC. This seems to agree with the revenues above adjusted for the 9 month duration of LNER's first accounts.
These figures don't surprise me based on my own observations of both train loadings and also ticket sales strategies. LNER has certainly not gone back on Virgin Trains East Coast's swerve away from the lowest Advance tiers, and whether by accident or design, release of some other Advance tickets does seem to have become restricted as well.
On Tuesday this week, for example, the LNER system showed no Advances at all from London to Newcastle on the 28th January until late evening services. Today, Advances in Standard and First
are showing on most services. Hitherto, I'd have assumed that that would suppress revenue, both by discouraging bookings and also by pushing sales into inter-available fare types. However, I wonder in this case, as the cheapest alternative to a Standard Advance would be a Super Off Peak Single, at a premium of 17.4% in the specific example I am looking at. Is the revenue from this fare type retained by LNER (& Connections as relevant) or does it go through ORCATS?
For 1st May, the current booking horizon, there are only two First Advances at the lowest available fare released on most Durham to London King's Cross services. First Advances in general seem to be unavailable full-stop on certain services, and even more-so for flows which don't start and end in London. This would tie in with the report above that London flows are revenue positive at the moment, and non-London are negative.
All very interesting, anyhow.
Edited: to add that
very anecdotally the level of customer satisfaction amongst my clients and networks is much higher with LNER than ever it was with Virgin Trains East Coast - which I put down mostly to the cessation of the incessant over-promising of the latter, while both customers and staff were having to deal with blatant cutbacks and under-performance on a daily basis.
Even if performance hasn't improved under LNER (or if it has), then the fact that passengers may feel less like foie gras geese being force fed brand claptrap constantly will likely have improved their moods.