Speeding Coach/air Bookings
Page 79
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Faced with the possibility of a further decline in stage carriage service revenue in the future, if the trend towards more private motoring continues, operators in all parts of the country have been actively casting around for new or additional sources of income.
le north of England at present .e appears to be good possibilities we coach/air holidays and travel ps, and this year the pool chart in the West Yorkshire Road Car tny's headquarters at Harrogate, annually charts 400,000 coach rigs, started the season with the
facility of telex.
I Yorkshire itself has been one operators of coach/air since its 'ration in the early 1950s. The ;ement was first carried out with incashire Aircraft Corporation 3ritish United Airways (CI) Ltd. the Wellington Street bus station st Yorkshire has been made the I British United air terminal ag in Leeds.
F Man Service
ticularly well known is the long [shed coach/air operation Blackpool and the Isle of Passengers travelling on the hire/Blackpool services to s Gate airport are flown across there to Ronaldsway, and then by local transport into Douglas.
.onal picking-up points in outdistricts of the West Riding, -izing picking up and setting of passengers within Squires airport, were granted to the hire-Blackpool pool as long ago 53, soon after the joint operaegan. Now, all service journeys to and from Blackpool from the hire side operate into and out of irport irrespective of whether igers are charted to be picked up. basis of this operation is that a [ger can go into any office or of West Yorkshire and book a which enables him to travel n the home town and Blackand then forward to the Isle of Fares are very competitive and ving in time compared with the urney is quite substantial. Since the introduction of this facility, the number of passengers carried has gradually increased, and on peak-holiday Saturdays there is now a reserved aircraft on which the coach operators take up the whole of the accommodation. This enables the booking of passengers without contacting the reservation department of the airline at Blackpool.
The booking offices can now contact the chart room at Harrogate. which controls the whole network of services, to ascertain whether accommodation is available, and the passenger can then be given an answer immediately. Now, in 1965, all chart-room bookings are handled on telex, thus again increasing efficiency, whereby the prospective passenger can be told in a very short time whether there is a seat available.
Bookings can be done similarly between Blackpool and Jersey, and from the Leeds and Bradford airports to both the Isle of Man and Jersey, but there is not a reserved plane on these services.
Increased Demand The demand for coach/air has so increased that it has now been extended to include facilities to the Continent, and in this respect, the chart room books the passengers on Yorkshire services to London. They are then carried forward on the express services of the East Kent, Royal Blue or Eastern National. to either Southend or Hurt), where British United Air Ferries Ltd, takes over the air portion of the journey. Again telex is used for such bookings.
A further innovation this summer is
that West Yorkshire is to introduce further coach/air facilities to the Continent, in association with Skyways_ This will involve the carrying of passengers from Yorkshire to London on Yorkshire services; London to Lympne on East Kent and then by air from Lympne to Beauvais and Paris. In this way a passenger will be able to travel from Leeds to Paris for as little as if 1 10s.
Agent for BKS
As well as being agents for British United, West Yorkshire acts in a similar capacity for BKS Air Transport, who operate a network of services from Leeds and Bradford airports, both domestic and international.
In this connection Mr. J. A. Talbot, traffic manager of West Yorkshire, states: "Although we are agents for such domestic flights as Leeds/Bradford airport to London, Jersey and Belfast, we do not exclude bookings for passengers to such places as Dublin or Ostend. We can still make these, but. on a different system."
Mr. Talbot feels that two points which favour coach/air, are that the price is very competitive with both sea and rail travel. Secondly, passengers are guaranteed accommodation and a seat from the beginning of their journey to arrival at their destination point, and return.
The coach/air aspect of both West Yorkshire and Harrogate chart-room operations has increased considerably in the past few years and Mr. Talbot anticipates that the continued increase in air travel itself will ensure that coach/air will play an even bigger part in the transport of tomorrow.