I seen a few 090 on Saturday. Numbers not too bad , not more than half the seats filled. I prefer the 900 and £10 return ticket.
You should have no problem using your NEC as a walk-up.
Interestingly one of the Flixbus Neoplans (OU22 ZWX) was used on Whippets new summer weekends service 101 between Huntingdon and Hunstanton!
Temporarily suspended due to lack of staff. The same has happened with the 074 Liverpool to York. Services due to resume 31st July. Belle Vue/Flix are focussing their resources into new trips (the new trips they took over on the 021 and upcoming new trips to Newcastle and London) rather than operating the services they already had.
I think it was mentioned further up the thread they were going to serve the airport but pulled out.
This service is actually Cambridge to Brighton via Trumpington P&R, Stratford & Gatwick. It was extremely poorly advertised in the press releases that I have seen and doesn't reflect the true service. It therefore has a lot of new links which aren't available on the core NatEx network. Cambridge to Stratford, Cambridge to Gatwick. London Stratford to Gatwick and then of course Cambridge and Stratford down to Brighton.
You'll find these all start or finish at Cambridge.
The website is a mess in that respect. You have to just search for London and hope Stratford shows up as a sub destination, or use filter options when you have clicked search.
Ah so it is a Brighton to Cambridge service. I suppose then their main target market will probably be the Gatwick to Cambridge passengers. But then why extend to Brighton too. I see that their website is offering £4.99 Single or £9.98 Return for Brighton to Stratford for any date i check so maybe they are hoping that some people will be enticed by the low fares. But i still would have thought going via London Victoria Coach Station would be a better idea. Then you provide a direct service to Central London for the Cambridge and Gatwick and Brighton passengers to compete with National Express services as well as providing a Gatwick to Cambridge direct service.
Do any coaches do cross London via VCS? The traffic would be awful surely and make timetabling a PITA. I actually think it seems quite smart, train is always going to win for people heading to Victoria so instead of fighting with NatEx over a few price conscious passengers, why not instead focus on people not heading to Victoria or even London Bridge
Almost all National Express services go via Heathrow, so are exceptionally slow to London.
Didn't the NatEx 025 used to be routed through South London? Now it goes via Heathrow.
I remember seeing NatEx coaches in Mitcham, and they could have been on the 025.
My point was more that by running a coach service via Central London you’d have to deal with traffic in South London getting to Victoria, and then battle out of Central London too. It’d be a nightmare for reliability
How far round the M25 is it going? A2 Junction?
They would have been in the past, but the 025 has been via Heathrow for a good few years now, and the A3 which also went through South London to Gatwick no longer runs.
Or perhaps the A20 junction.
That's before you look at the fact the journey would then need a driver swap because of the length so that's more cost for feeder drivers. Then there is the fact that 1 bus wouldn't be able to do 2 round trips daily because longer journey times would mean the bus would have to be out 24/7. Then you add on the fact you are forcing yourself to compete with NX whereas how Flix are doing it opens up new links for everyone. Including Gatwick Airport links to a new part of London (currently the furthest in East London you can get by a direct mode of transport is Thameslink Core. Anything further east than that, you are faffing around). Could be a good thing if they manage to expand it as a way of improving links from East London to Gatwick.
www.flixbus.co.uk
Nothing other than press releases and some generic paid for web advertising. Even on the stops they don't promote which buses run from there, it's just a generic poster telling people to scan the QR Code to find out where they can travel. This is because the general attitude of Flixbus is that everything is online and people find out about services just by general searches. Proper written information relies on being updated when there is changes and Flix haven't got the time for that as it stifles their innovation and ability to quickly amend services in line with demand.
