National Express to take over GNER franchise
by JFC AdminIt’s been a while since I’ve travelled GNER but I’ve always considered them one of the better train operators in the UK. I missed the news that National Express had been awarded the new franchise in August. The new franchise will start on 9th December 2007.
My main concern for this franchise is that National Express seem to have made the same mistake in bidding for the franchise as GNER, that is they’re paying too high a premium to offer services on this line. GNER were to pay the government £1.3 billion to run the franchise until March 2015, according to the BBC, National Express will be paying £1.4 billion to run the franchise also until March 2015. Therefore National Express are paying more for a shorter franchise as the franchise ends 10 years after GNER was given the renewed franchise rather than 10 years after National Express takes it over.
GNER struggled with these high payments to the government and I can’t see how National Express are going to do any better unless they sacrifice service quality or they raise fares. No doubt if fares rise it’ll be the flexible tickets that suffer the most, one of the things I like about rail travel is its turn up and go nature but these days rail companies are concentrating too much on getting the advance purchase tickets down in price and raising the flexible ticket prices.