Jonathan Welch continues his travels aboard UK Bus Award-winning services with a journey on Citylink AIR
In the third of my series of travels aboard the winners of the CBW-sponsored Best Express Service award at the 2023 UK Bus Awards, I’m taking a trip aboard category winner Citylink AIR. Like one of the other winners, the service starts from Glasgow’s Buchanan Street Bus Station, before heading east along the M8 to Edinburgh Airport, the journey scheduled to take just under an hour with just two stops at Maxim Park and Harthill.
Despite being mid-morning and sunny, it was a bitterly cold -6 degrees when I arrived in the city. Buchanan Street is always a busy and bustling place, the hub of Glasgow’s bus network with local, regional, long distance services and tour coaches all using the large site to pick up, drop off and lay over.
I joined the queue of around 20 people waiting to board the next hourly AIR service to Edinburgh Airport, watching for one of the distinctive blue 2019 Plaxton Panoramas to arrive. The stance is shared with the hourly 902, which takes an hour and 46 minutes to reach Edinburgh airport, running via Coatbridge, Airdrie and Livingston.
AIR operates half hourly throughout most of the day, the first journey leaving Glasgow at 0445. That bus forms the westbound first departure from the airport at 0555, the service continuing until last departures at 2145 eastbound and 2255 westbound. Outside these times, the parallel service 900, which shuttles between Glasgow and Edinburgh city centres, offers an alternative, with journeys diverting to serve the airport hourly through the night, giving a round-the-clock, seven-days-a-week service for travellers and staff.
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