Today I took the under-threat 757 bus to and from the airport. For most of the time I was the only passenger.
A few folk took the bus between Newtonhill and Asda, but that’s it. The drivers confirmed they see very few passengers. So no wonder Stagecoach is proposing to end the service in August.
It runs nearly every hour, starting at Chapelton at 5.27am, then 9.27am and roughly every hour until late. It calls at two park-and-ride sites along the way. Kingswells had quite a few cars but no passengers for us. However Craibstone had only four cars and again no passengers for the 757.
My reason for the journey was to attend a meeting of the Aberdeen International Airport Consultative Committee.
This is a forum for Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire councillors and local community councils (plus a few others) to meet airport management and associated organisations such as National Air Traffic Services who are commonly referred to as NATS.
Steve Szalay who was appointed as new airport managing director last autumn brought us up to date about the industrial dispute. He was hopeful it would be settled today. So far it has not interfered with flights.
I was heartened by his enthusiasm for expanding the range of service offered by the airport. There are flights to 14 countries, and he would like a wider range in summer and winter. A priority is to re-establish a link to Gatwick and to Frankfurt. He has a meeting due with Easyjet about bringing them back to the city. However, it is a tough aviation environment and operators are cautious.
He added that the North East punches above its weight as if it were not for oil and gas we would only have an airport only slightly larger than Inverness.
I took the opportunity to mention the probable demise of the 757 bus service … and the lack of a rail connection. The bus service between Dyce station and the airport ended due to a lack of custom. It appears that we prefer to drive ourselves, get a taxi or use the 727 bus service to Union Square.
UPDATE, SATURDAY 29 June – I have just learned that First are starting a service which links Dyce station with the airport: https://bustimes.org/services/x27-aberdeen-aberdeen-airport
It’s a shame, but if it’s not being used enough, then it stands to reason there will be no profit, and no incentive for Stagecoach to continue running the service.
The service from the bus station is very good!
Indeed. Perhaps on reflection Stagecoach could have made improvements to the early morning runs to the airport, and also publicised their service. Plus there is no timetable on display at the airport.
We journeyed back from airport to Newtonhill this week. We knew the service existed, but had no idea where to get on, the app said stand 4, no one we spoke to knew where stand 4 was. There were no readily available notices we could find to say the service was available, so how a stranger to Aberdeen would know or find it I don’t know. Perhaps better advertising at the airport might help to increase usage.
Thanks Paul. It needs better publicity at the airport.