Airline-style service boosts coach challenge
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COACH PASSENGERS have been travelling miles to sample Judy Walsh's pork pies. And Tina Abrokwa's cheese and pickle sandwiches are renowned from London to Liverpool.
For these two hostesses on the National Express Rapide services, and their 130 colleagues, have been displaying all the initiative and entrepreneurial skill of the operators themselves in the current battle for business on inter-city routes.
When the group of six more Rapide routes began this month, with the flagship Metroliner double-deck coaches entering service, the in-flight service offered by National's corps of hostesses (and four lonely stewards) will be a major selling point over both coach rivals and British Rail.
The hostesses earn only around £35 a week as a basic retainer, according to the number of trips made, but once kitted out in their smart red, white and blue uniforms are free to entice passengers with their home-made sandwiches, scones, tea and coffee and other delicacies to take their earnings to over the £100 mark as individually franchised coach caterers.
All 20-plus Rapide routes offer a basic menu which the hostesses are encouraged to extend with their own lines. As well as supplying the specified range of sandwiches and beverages at an agreed standard tariff (in which the staff have a say), the hostesses are free to sell additional items of their own choosing, known in the business as "confectionery" but ranging from chocolate to home-made cakes and pork pies.
In the period up to Easter, hotcross buns and chocolate eggs were being proffered on some routes.
The staff buy their own stock from cash and carry wholesalers and are responsible for their own book-keeping and any necessary dealings with the Inland Revenue. Rapide facilities supervisor Georgina Lane, herself a former hostess (and before that a nurse), says that what the hostesses earn reflects their own business acumen and initiative.
Plenty of that is being shown by the determined young ladies who man the galleys of the £80,000 to £120,000 coaches which, for a small premium over normal National Express fares, lure passengers with at-seat service, well appointed interiors, comfortable reclining seats, toilet and washroom facilities, and videos.
Landing a hostess job is highly competitive. A recent advertisement for five jobs on services from Birmingham brought 932 applicants, and 450 tried for the three jobs offered from Liverpool.
As the Rapide network continues to grow, more vacancies are expected, with two dozen more needed for the six new routes this month. But intending applicants are warned that most depots have long waiting lists.
National Express is looking for — and finding — applicants similarly qualified to air hostesses. Indeed, there are several ex-airline hostesses already in the ranks and others have seen a spell on Rapides as their way into airline work.
The Riipide service staff are all members of the Transport and General Workers' Union — a condition of working into London's Victoria Coach Station — and all undergo three-day training courses including customer relations, and have to gain additional qualifications in first-aid.
National Insurance contributions are covered by the basic £35 a week pay, plus meal allowances. Additional earnings vary from route to route and seasonally, but can treble the basic pay, with some of the most highly prized runs likely td be those worked by the 73-seat double-deck Metroliners. Some of the shifts involve overnight stays, for instance on the London-Plymouth and Bristol-Glasgow runs.
The Rapide premium image — typified by the high quality hostess service — has represented an increasing threat to BR's lucrative Inter City business traffic. And it has compelled sector director Cyril Bleasdale to rethink the traditionally highly complex, but impersonal buffet car system whose catering is administered directly by the train catering division of Travellers Fare.
Its own administration has to cope with 1,600 full-time employees, the ordering of produce, stock control and bookkeeping, as well as checking for the inevitable fiddles by BR's own would-be entrepreneurs not satisfied with their five per cent commission on sales.
Train catering itself made a loss of £4.9m last year, according to BR's annual report. Moves are already underway within BR to bring in at-seat service, trolleys on trains and privatelyrun catering, though it will be hard pressed to better the service provided by Judy and Tina.
Their Rapide sandwiches will be a match for anything BR can throw at them. And they are 20p cheaper than BR's, too.