European Express

Coach travel is well known to be the best way to get around. It’s cheap, comfortable and reliable, but there may just be more connections than many people are aware of. Richard Sharman investigates the recent history of UK to Europe express coach travel, and compares the current offerings

Domestic express coach travel is big business. National Express, megabus, Citylink and FlixBus are all well known brands that offer value for money fares to an ever growing number of destinations in England, Scotland and Wales. But, for those wanting to travel beyond the United Kingdom’s borders, there have been some other interesting options available for a long time.

Eurolines sets the trend

For many decades, the market leader and household name in European coach travel to and from the UK was Eurolines, an organisation that was formed in 1985 by a consortium of coach operators to provide long distance coach services under one brand. The UK arm of the consortium was formed in February 1986 by National Express, although originally named Supabus, prior to being renamed Eurolines (UK) Limited in August 1989.

The white coaches with prominent blue and red Eurolines branding could be seen throughout the UK, and the livery adorned many independent operators’ coaches from the UK over the years.

For some operators, they might have only operated their livered coach to Europe on a weekend, meaning that those vehicles often acted as prominent mobile advertising boards whilst they were used on other work such as private hires, rail replacement (pre-PSVAR era!) and school services. The same could also be said for the European operators involved, as they were in the same situation, and many weird and wonderful types of coaches could be seen in the UK transporting tourists with the full livery applied, or simply carrying Eurolines branding on their owner’s livery.

The 1990s to 2000s period seemed to be the two decades when Eurolines vehicles were most frequently seen in the UK, and passengers also had the ability to book through tickets on National Express to connect with Eurolines services. However, European coach travel was about to get a shake up.

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From Perth to Paris & beyond

With Sir Brian Souter’s Stagecoach having taken on National Express with domestic megabus services, April 2012 saw further expansion on the Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and Boulogne corridors on daytime and overnight services from London Victoria Coach Station. There was also a dedicated Paris-Brussels-Amsterdam service.

A new fleet of Plaxton Panther-bodied Volvo B9R coaches was allocated to Rugby depot, equipped with free WiFi and toilets, to be used on the network. The cheapest tickets were just £1 or €1 per journey (plus the customary 50p/50c booking fee).

Sir Brian Souter, Stagecoach Group Chief Executive at the time, said: “We launched megabus in Scotland nine years ago and it has already transformed inter-city travel in the UK and North America. With the rising cost of living, rocketing fuel prices and running a car becoming more and more expensive, everyone is looking to make their money go further.

“For too long, people in many parts of Europe have been paying too much for their coach travel. Our new network offers families, students and tourists great value fares and high-quality coaches. These services will deliver a long overdue shake-up to the over-priced European coach travel market.”

Not much seems to have changed in the intervening decade; lots of that could still be said today, even if the colours are different.

In October 2013 megabus announced that it was expanding its network of services to include more European destinations. This time it was the turn of Germany to become part of the megabus Europe with a new link between London and Cologne.

The London to Cologne service also served Ghent and Brussels on its way through Belgium, and operated twice a day in each direction, with a total journey time of 10 hours 30 minutes. Customers could also travel on the twice daily services between London, Lille, Ghent, Antwerp, Rotterdam and Amsterdam, with journeys between London and Lille taking less than six hours.

By 2015, megabus had expanded even further into Europe with London to Italy coach services. From 8 July, the company operated two services a day in each direction between London, Lille, Paris, Lyon, Turin and Milan. The new route – the only direct coach link between London and Milan – was the first megabus connection between the UK and Italy and would also provide a direct link between London and Lyon for the first time. The route also connected Britain with the new domestic megabus network in Italy, which covered 13 cities including Rome, Milan, Naples, Venice and Florence.

After four years of solid expansion, in July 2016 Stagecoach Group announced that is was to sell the retail operations of its megabus Europe business to rival FlixBus.

The megabus Europe business comprised both retailing activities and coach operating activities. The retailing activities related to the design of services, including timetabling, co-ordination and marketing, as well as pricing and ticket sales. Stagecoach agreed the sale of the retailing part of the business, and continued to operate a number of European inter-city coach services as a contractor to FlixBus.

A Stagecoach spokesperson told CBW at the time: “FlixBus has the rights to use the megabus brand in Europe should they choose to, but that will be a decision for them. Our operating bases in mainland Europe are continuing to run as normal as we are still running our existing network. However, we are now doing it on behalf of FlixBus. Ultimately it will be up to FlixBus to decide what that network looks like over the longer term.”

On why the retail operations were sold, the operator added: “We built up a good footprint and recognised brand within mainland Europe over a short space of time. We have always been clear that there would be consolidation in the inter-city coach market in Europe, which has continued to be a highly-competitive environment. Against that background, we undertook a review of the strategic options for megabus to decide on the best way forward for our business. We concluded that a sale of the retailing part of the megabus Europe business would realise value from our investment.”

The plan was for Stagecoach to continue to operate the European inter-city coach services as a contractor to FlixBus, but this arrangement proved to be short lived. Prior to Flixbus making this move, it had only been operating into Britain from Europe since March of that year. It started with a London to Paris service twice a day.

It was also planning new night services, higher frequencies and direct links to Frankfurt, Luxemburg or Prague by the end of the spring 2016, and in a preview of what was to come, the operator said further destinations in the UK were in the pipeline.

FlixBus founder and Managing Director André Schwämmlein said: “The cross-border link from London to France is our first step into the market in the UK. We are soon going to connect the capital to the most popular cities in mainland Europe by day or night. We also want to extend our service to other destinations in England.”

At this time, FlixBus had only been established for three years in Germany, but by 2016 was operating in 18 European countries. The company transported around 20 million passengers in 2015, and the megabus deal rapidly speeded up the process of expansion for FlixBus in the UK.

NatEx resigns from Eurolines

In February 2018, to the shock of the industry, National Express revealed it was to break ties with Eurolines. At the time a National Express spokesperson told CBW: “Eurolines has been a well-established brand in Europe, and part of the National Express network, for many years. However, we have taken the decision to resign from the Eurolines Organisation and its partners, as we believe there is a greater opportunity for our business outside of this partnership.”

At the same time, it confirmed that it had forged a new partnership with OuiBus in France and ALSA in Spain. OuiBus was a subsidiary of French state-owned railway operator SNCF and ALSA is the Spanish subsidiary of the National Express Group, now named Mobico.

This allowed coach passengers to continue to travel to hundreds of destinations across Europe through National Express’s website. Chris Hardy, then National Express Coach Managing Director, told CBW that the partnership would strengthens its hand in Europe and give customers access to great value connected coach travel across a wide range of destinations in the UK and Europe. “OuiBus and ALSA are both well-established and respected coach travel providers and market leaders in their own right. We are pleased to welcome them to our family of European partners,” he said.

Despite the huge change, the Eurolines Consortium was not going to give up its UK customer base that easily and Transdev expanded its Eurolines-branded continental long-distance coach services to the UK from January 2018. It provided 10 daily departures from London Victoria to France and the Benelux on high-quality large-capacity coaches with free 4G WiFi. The Transdev expansion to the UK meant that British travellers could still access 1,500 cities in over 22 countries on the Eurolines network in continental Europe and Morocco.

Transdev reported shortly after launch that occupancy rates on both sides of the channel were close to 100% every week. Hugo Roncal, CEO of Transdev Eurolines at the time, commented: “We knew the value of the Eurolines brand in the UK so it was quite straightforward for us to expand our continental activities. We are happy to provide British customers with the largest coach network in Europe, under a well-established brand, Eurolines.”

Services integrated

However, the UK Eurolines brand comeback was to be short lived, on 30 April 2019 FlixBus and Transdev came to an agreement about FlixBus buying the Eurolines and isilines long-distance coach services. The deal included the Eurolines operating businesses in France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Czech Republic and Spain, with a bus network spanning more than 25 countries. Eurolines also operated under the isilines brand domestically in France. In the markets with Eurolines businesses, the respective FlixBus managing directors oversaw the respective companies.

Jochen Engert, founder and CEO of FlixBus, explained: “We want to offer green and affordable mobility to travelers all over the world. The Eurolines and isilines long-distance route networks enable us to expand our European reach even further. After assessing the businesses, we will see to do what we have always been doing best: having the best offer for the customer, in network and in service.

“By harmonising the networks we have one strong combined offering instead of parallel services. The integration of the Eurolines business strengthens our European network and complements our further growth in key European markets.”

Thierry Mallet, then Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Transdev Group, said that the negotiations were conducted quickly and efficiently with FlixBus and that the sale had been part of Transdev’s new strategic plan to focus its resources on its core business.

Current offerings

Fast forward to 2024, and the recovery from the global Covid-19 pandemic is well underway. Coach travellers can now access an ever-growing range of options to reach Europe and beyond.

With the vast expansion of the FlixBus network since 2016, it is no wonder that the company now operates a significant network of coach services, not just from London, but many other destinations.

Andreas Schorling, Managing Director of FlixBus UK told CBW: “As Europe’s largest coach network, FlixBus is proud to offer multiple daily coach routes into the continent, having launched routes between France and London in 2016, and growing to offer journeys to Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany.

“Since our official launch to the domestic UK sector in 2021, FlixBus has grown its network to provide international routes for cities across the country, like Birmingham, Leicester, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and Cambridge – and more – to offer sustainable and reliable direct connections into cities including Brussels, Paris and Amsterdam. Our mission is to provide green transport for everyone, to explore the world, and we are extremely proud to be leading the way for international intercity travel in this country as we build the country’s largest coach network.”

Whilst megabus sold its European operations many years ago, it does still offer a connection from London to Paris via its partner operator Prime Bus. AirSym provides a former megabus Europe left hand drive Plaxton Elite i on one trip in each direction overnight from London on Thursday to Saturday, returning overnight Friday to Sunday.

French Car sharing platform BlaBlaCar entered the coach market with its purchase of OuiBus from France’s national railway company SNCF in November 2018, which also explains why National Express’s partnership with OuiBus was short lived, as BlaBlaCar wanted to forge its own network. Prior to the National Express deal, OuiBus had already been operating from London to Paris since June 2015, although services were originally branded as IDBus before a rebrand in September of that year. OuiBus now operates three journeys a day between London and Paris with BlaBlaCar liveried coaches operated by independent operators. Coach travellers can choice between a 9hr 30min trip departing at 0830hrs, or two overnight departures.

Beyond France

Where things start to get even more interesting is the companies from much further afield in Europe operating into London. Tourist transport company Union Ivkoni is the biggest bus carrier in Bulgaria. It has been operating since 1992, and now operates to more than 100 towns in Bulgaria and to more than 150 towns in Central and Western Europe, Greece and Turkey. Departing at 1900hrs from Bulleid Way in London, it offers a service that can take passengers all the way to Sofia in Bulgaria, a trip of some 49 hours! So if you like long distance coach travel, this is the service for you.

Czech operator Regiojet offers a coach service into London via from its capital, Prague, using high profile yellow Irizar i8 coaches, matching the company’s trains. The coach service departs from Prague at 1800hrs, arriving in London at 1130hrs the next day, having also called at Luxembourg and Brussels. This service also serves Bulleid Way.

Finally there is Polish operator Sindbad, which has been providing international coach travel since 1992. It operates a fleet of some 120 Setra coaches with connections between 220 Polish cities and more than 420 cities in Europe. Pre-Covid, Sindbad coaches could be seen much further north than its current offering to London, and stopping at Maidstone and Folkestone on the way to Poland.

Final thought

Coach travel has changed over the years, but if anything it has vastly grown in popularity. Whilst the coach may offer slower travelling times than taking a plane to Europe, it provides an adventure and an opportunity to take in mile after mile of scenery that would otherwise be missed by taking a flight that just gives you a brief glimpse of the landscape through the clouds. Long may European coach travel offer the diversity of coaches, operators and routes that it does in 2024!

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