Silverline LandFlight has been providing quality transport to the airline industry and the Solihull area since 1974. Recent expansion has seen the bus service side of the business grow with a number of contract gains. Richard Sharman visited the operator a few weeks after the start of the new services to see how things were progressing
The West Midlands area is home to many coach and bus operators, but Silverline LandFlight stands out as being slightly different. It has been a major supplier of transport to airlines using Birmingham Airport for many years.
Other areas of the company’s operations allow it to offer bespoke transport to a broad range of customers. The recent expansion of the bus service side of the operation also means it is now transporting thousands of Solihull residents a month around the town. [wlm_nonmember][…]
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The Directors of the company are Akhtar Ali, Danny Matthews and Parvez Choudry, who was not available at the time CBW visited. Akhtar started out as a taxi driver, before becoming a manager and then, together with Parvez, taking over Crown Cars in 2001. Akhtar and Parvez then bought shares in Silverline LandFlight in 2012. Danny joined the company in 1996 and has always been involved in business development, but prior to that he was a works director for a manufacturing company and a graphic designer.
From one car to a multi-purpose fleet
“Silverline was formed by one man, Malcolm Breakwell, with one car and one idea: to provide a quality service,” explained Danny. “The operation was originally formed to operate private hire taxis in the Solihull area, and he was very successful in this; in 1995 expansion saw Silverline move into coach operation.
“The reason for the expansion was that Silverline was seeing larger groups traveling, many to and from the airport, and at the time we were having to contract that work out. So after a while, we thought that we would be better off buying a minibus and expanding through that. Our first small coach was an L-plate Caetano Optimo-bodied Toyota Coaster.
“The company originally traded as Silverline Taxis, but in the early days of operating the first small coach the company looked at a project with British Airways for a direct coach service between Birmingham and Heathrow airports. During the idea-gathering process, the name LandFlight was thought up. Malcolm liked this name and trademarked it. The service was discussed though never launched, but the LandFlight name stuck.”
Supporting the aviation industry
“We are very much allied to the aviation industry as we provide crew transfers for many of the scheduled airlines that operate into Birmingham Airport,” explained Danny.
“The first 49-seater coach we bought was actually off the back of winning a contract with American Airlines to move aircrew to and from the airport. The crew stayed in Stratford-upon-Avon and we operated the crew transfers daily. With all the luggage involved the Caetano Optimo was not big enough, so we required a full-sized coach for the luggage space.
“In the present day operations we have contracts with the majority of scheduled airlines at Birmingham, including Emirates, Qatar and Lufthansa, providing scheduled daily movements for their crews. We also have a contract with FlyBe but this work is very ad-hoc and often we are informed on the day how many movements are required. It could be Birmingham to Manchester, Southampton or Exeter. Some days you may just have the one transfer, other days it can be anything up to eight.”
Coach hire and minibus operations
The coach fleet stands at 12 minibuses and coaches. Many of the vehicles are Mercedes-Benz based, but two new Yutong TC9s have broken that mould.
Danny explained why: “We were previously operating Noone Turas 900s-bodied Mercedes-Benz Atego 921L for our smaller coaches. The Yutong fitted our requirements much better due to being rear engined, which makes for a happy driver. Luggage capacity has increased as we only had a rear boot prior to this, and the interior fit out really ticked all the boxes for us. The interior has leather seating, USB ports, theatre lighting and the general ambiance of the vehicle is great for our clients.
“In terms of full-sized coaches we have three Mercedes-Benz Tourismo in the fleet and a fourth is currently on order. We have two 65-plates, one 67-plate and the Tourismo on order will be the third 19-plate vehicle to enter our fleet. The Tourismo on order has been specified with 51 Softline seats, instead of our normal standard of 49 Luxline seats. We do find occasionally that some groups require those couple of extra seats. Another option for us would have been 53 seats but we didn’t want to start running tri-axle vehicles due to the additional tyre costs and the chance of the longer overhang getting panels damaged.
“The coach fleet should remain fairly stable now, but we have just started working with some tour operators, which may require additional vehicles in the future.”
Buses by chance
“We fell into bus service operation by chance,” recalled Danny. “At the time I had a team of four in the sales department who were working on gaining work for the company. One of the team had applied to operate a registered bus service – which I wasn’t aware of. At the time I was on holiday and got a phone call from the office to say that we had been successful in gaining a contract, but the bad news was it was for a bus service. We did not have any buses at this point so it was all hands to the pump to get things sorted.
“Previous to this we had operated a Park & Ride operation in Solihull to take the pressure off the town’s car park, as it can get very busy. We operated Optare Solos on that for a few years, until its withdrawal due to council cuts.
After that, we operated our first registered bus service in Nuneaton six-days-a-week for Warwickshire County Council. We followed that up with contract gains from Centro, as it was before it became Transport for West Midlands (TfWM).
“Over the years it did get harder to win tenders, as operators were putting in prices which I believe were below the break-even mark.”
Akhtar commented: “I think TfWM has now realised that giving the work to the cheapest operator can mean that the standard and quality is often not there.”
Current bus service operations
“Our current portfolio of bus services started in 2011 with the Blythe Valley Business Park shuttle service,” explained Danny. “This operates at peak periods only with two routes and a PVR of three. One of the 2016 ADL Enviro200s we operate has been vinyl wrapped to advertise the business park.
“The three vehicles return to the depot during the day, which works well as it allows us to swap vehicles around and gets them in for safety inspections or a deep clean during the day.”
In February 2019, Silverline LandFlight gained several bus service contracts from TfWM in its home territory of Solihull and the surrounding areas. These services required a brand new fleet of buses and the need to quickly recruit additional drivers.
Talking about the tender gains, Danny said: “We looked at tendering for the Solihull area services back in 2011/12 as it would raise our profile in the local area and we could provide the community with a good service, but on that occasion we were unsuccessful. These contracts came around again this year and we were eager to obtain them, and this time we have been successful.
“We needed to find an additional 24 driving staff for the new routes in just seven weeks, and it went better than we thought. It has certainly been a challenge but we are at full strength and have a good bunch. The drivers have commented that they are enjoying the new routes they are driving as they also serve some areas in the countryside rather than being in the town all the time.
“The biggest change for us was the level of contact we received from the customers on the new routes. Many of the routes had different service numbers and times, so it has taken the customers some time to get used to this aspect. We also had requests to change times and routes, so we had to explain to them that we are operating the contract as set out by TfWM and that they need to contact them with suggestions.
“The whole fleet is tracked by a Navman system, which allows us to check on punctuality and look for any issues in the first month or so of operation of the new routes so that we can look at how to improve the routes if required.
We are also able to message the driving staff when required with this system.”
The mainstay of the fleet has in, recent years, been ADL Enviro200s, although two Optare Solos and four Wright Streetlite WFs have been operated in the past.
“We have been operating the ADL Enviro200 Classic for many years now so it was a natural choice to advance to the Enviro200MMC for the new services. They are well-built vehicles. The new vehicles have been leased from Mistral Bus & Coach, which has been very good to deal with and quick to supply the vehicles,” Danny explained.
Chauffeur and Taxi service
Silverline LandFlight operates seven E-Class and four V-Class Mercedes-Benz cars in the chauffeur fleet. These vehicles mainly see use on airport transfers or corporate work.
“In 1998 we had the contract to transport President Clinton and his team for the time they were in the UK, which involved over 100 vehicles and took a year in planning. We used our own fleet of cars and coaches, with Rover and Peugeot providing the bulk of the other vehicles,” said Danny.
“As a gesture of thanks prior to flying back, President Clinton summoned all the drivers to one area and shook their hands. That was a great moment for the company.”
Akhtar came into the business over six years ago, taking over the shares in the company after the original founder retired, and was already operating an established taxi fleet under the Crown Cars name.
Akhtar explained: “The Crown Cars fleet caters for up to eight passengers and is a separate entity to Silverline LandFlight. The taxi fleet is substantial and stands at 200 owner-drivers. We operated 300 vehicles prior to Uber coming into the area.
“We concentrate operations around Solihull, Hall Green and Shirley but we are happy to collect our customers from wherever is required. We also do airport runs, the same as Silverline LandFlight, but our clientele tend to be more general public rather than corporate customers.
“The new buses for the Solihull network of bus services are fitted with prominent rear advertising for the Crown Cars. We like to think of ourselves as a one-stop shop for all the customer’s transport needs.”
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