And to think what a big song and dance they made about not offering advance tickets when they first launched....
You're quite right. They did.
However, a lot has changed, and they as Operators now have a few years' hard data to inform their decisions rather than the speculative projections of a new comer.
Their biggest competitor (and it really has been quite agressive competition at times) is, of course, East Coast. EC has put a lot of expenditure into their marketing and, in particular, promoting their headline low-cost advance ticket prices, to the extent that casual pax could be forgiven for believing that
the price (the only price) for their long distance journeys are those heavily promoted headline prices (such as £15 London - Newcastle).
These promotions, although disingenuous by misleadng passengers into comparisons which are not comparable, and failing to point out that most journeys are NOT at those prices, have undermined GC's initial advantage of simple and low-cost fares.
Then, EC continued to increase prices overall, and did not provide quotas of their promoted headline cheapies on many services. In fact, they increased the differential (between Anytime and cheapest Advance) and emphasised additional facilities which GC did not offer (free Wi-Fi when GC had little or none), on board meals while GC have none etc. and to put the knife in deeper, management STILL accuse GC of ORCAGTS raids on ECML revenue
while remaining silent on their own gains in that respect with their outer-reaches once-a-day services.
Anyway, my response is that GC did make a song and dance about one of their greatest differences in their initial years, they'd spotted another opportunity to offer a genuine difference. Now that the context (the competition) has changed (partly in response and partly through market opportunities and innovation) they've now produced their own response. Yes, its a 'U-turn'. But why not? While their own prices have been increasing progresively, some on here have been hoping that they'd start to offer Advances.
Its probably exactly the right thing for GC to do right now.
It is likely to persuade me to travel with them more regularly now, following the deterioration in service on EC and the high very prices on EC.
(Prices: today with GC from Sunderland - London £74 - about twice the price at their launch. today with EC from Newcastle - London £143. Both Standard calss singles.)
