Lucketts has celebrated 90 years in business.
The Fareham-based operator has spent the entire nine decades under the ownership of the same family. Today it employs more than 320 people and has almost 130 vehicles, ranging from six-seater chauffeur driven cars to 63-seater coaches. It also owns two other brands – Coliseum Coaches and Worthing Coaches – and runs over 100 journeys each day for National Express.
The firm was founded in 1926 by Harry Luckett as a haulier to transport goods around the Solent. The company made its move into passenger transport when David Luckett, Harry’s son and the current Chairman, said: “It would be easier to transport things that can walk on and off by themselves.” He bought the first coach in 1973.
David Luckett, who has been in the Lucketts business for 53 years, said: “It means we can be very flexible and bring in changes and innovations very quickly. Just this year for example we’ve invested £1.6m in seven new coaches to ensure we have state-of-the-art vehicles with high comfort levels.
“The quality of facilities on board has become one of the most important things to passengers over the last few decades so it’s been a huge focus for us.
“We’re incredibly proud of our heritage and to have stood firm through so much change over the last 90 years. We’ve survived a world war, the energy crisis of the 1970s and a number of economic recessions and key to that has been listening to our customers and striving to provide the best quality.
“Now is an exciting time for us as we look ahead to further growth and evolve from being the family-run local operator we started as to an industry-leading regional operator with a family ethos.”
