Who going to pay to be a franchisees in UK and pay for what? they are nobody's and it been shown there not a name here and dont know what they're doing with GB rules.
And anyone who wants to take risk are welcome to ask megabus if they can run coaches in megabus blue.
As megabus would be ok with putting new routes on their website if you're going to offer a good standard and give megabus a cut.
Why is this scary? Well NX don`t just do core city to city travel they do local shops and offer lifelines with some stops are the only bus service and they sell tickets on board. think of a market without NX there be no coach stations / local pick up no timetables. NX routes do have timetables that they always run unless of a issue that they have to close the service. Also, would Flixbus put on a taxi? or just refund.
I believe they collect their franchise fees as a percentage value of the tickets sold. They may not be known here (yet), but they weren't known in any of the European countries before starting up, and seem to have carved out a pretty large business quite quickly. Their falling foul of GB rules is only a minor hiccup, not that unusual of any business starting up in a new country.
Operators wanting to take both operational and revenue are no doubt welcome to ask megabus for a similar arrangement, but that is of no interest to Flixbus who will want their brand and operating practices.
Flixbus sell tickets on board also. NX have been gradually withdrawing from local stops and cross country routes over the years, and frequently change their timetables to try and match supply with demand. Megabus are in a similar situation. This is what happens when coaches are operated on a purely commercial basis nowadays. Flixbus are no different.
Not sure what your issue about coach stations are?
Flixbus may find it difficult to become established here due to the developed state of the UK scheduled coach industry, especially with the depressed passenger numbers due to Covid.
Is revenue risk with the operator in Germany as well, or was this just for the UK?
This is the model of Flixbus from start up, including in Germany. I believe it is a little more complicated, in that there is some 'support' during the initial start up phase. Some years ago a consortium of German operators were threatening to take Flixbus to court over certain onerous conditions, but I believe it was settled before reaching there.
Yes but Flixbus is really just a Internet website and ticket agent and has been very lucky to get as far as they had.
But they never really taken on stagecoach and NX on their own market and the UK market is well controlled with rules.
NX and Stagecoach don't really fight as they so have agreements. to point when I worked for NX and Megabus we used to help each other out.
Stagecoach got out of Europe as they could not crack it as it like the wild west with it like the 80s here.
Either very lucky or very clever. You can make up your own mind on that one
The UK long distance coach market is no more 'well controlled by rules' than any other European country - in fact Germany has much more rules than the UK, even though it is 'deregulated'
I cannot believe that NX and Stagecoach have 'agreements' so they don't really fight. These would be illegal, but if you have evidence of some then perhaps you could post on here? Helping each other out in emergency situations does not constitute an agreement not to compete!