German passengers "stranded" at CVT
 

Went to CVT today due to the HLX start, and coming back from airport saw a crowd of passengers at a bus stop heading OUT of town. Turned out that they had been dropped there by the airport car park shuttle, and were expecting a bus going IN to the city.

Who knows how long they might have waited if they hadn't been sent to the correct bus stop 100m away on the other side of the road.

This is a major embarrassment for CVT - German passengers are used to high speed rail services whisking them to and from the airport. No-one's saying a train is viable at CVT, but 6 months since opening, and there is still not even a basic bus to the city centre - and information about this is extremely sparse.

Result - to make onward journeys, pax have to take the parking shuttle, then a bus into town, then quite possibly another bus to the rail station, before they can even begin their onward journey. And if they want to head towards Leicester, they must take another rail replacement bus to Nuneaton first.

Welcome to British public transport.

The lack of bus service to the City centre from the airport is pretty poor. We had a new Tesco open today and they've got about 3 different buses going there.... but the airport can't strike a deal? Buses run to tollbar island, would it be that much hassle for them to extend it?

I have asked at the Airport Consultative Committee about this and was told that negotiations are well on the way with two bus companies to provide services, including one from the railway station to the airport.

Warkman,

I know you're working on this. Now HLX have started, there is an urgent need to get it sorted ASAP.

I just felt so embarrased for these poor souls waiting for a bus which wasn't going to come. Especially coming from Cologne where they've just opened a fantastic new ICE station at the airport. I know that sort of infrastructure is pricey, but even at a basic level, almost every German bus stop has a map, timetable, and a list of routes - this one had nothing.

A good airport with poor facilities and infrastructure, even Ryanair fly to airports with on-site public transport!

Anyway, TUI are the Coventry experts and folk fill thier flights!

http://whipsnade.co.uk/picturelibrar...r_120_wide.jpg

Possibly you can point me to the high speed rail service which could whisk me to Germany's principal low cost airline airport, namely Hahn.

I must have missed it.

There is, however, a regular bus service at Hahn. Most of which is timed to coincide with the arrival and departure of Ryanair flights. Hahn Express being one of the operators.

WHBM,

I was contrasting CGN with CVT. Granted, Hahn has no such facilities, and granted, there is a cost element attached to this infrastructure, but I think it is fair to say that Germany has the best integrated airports when it comes to making links between flights and onward rail journeys.

FRA, DUS and now CGN are served by ICE stations, whereas STR, MUC, HAJ, HAM, THF and SXF have direct local or urban rail / metro links. If I've missed any out, please correct me. SXF will also have an ICE link when BBI is opened, although it will be interesting to see if the locos are offered the option of using the old terminal (another thread?).

JMC

Slightly (well, very) off topic but were is the 'new' Tesco's?

Know about Cannon Park and Walsgrave.

HAM hasn't (it's being built though), but :8
- BRE (light rail/streetcar/tramway)
- NUE (underground)
- FDH (!) (local rail) and
- LEJ (intercity rail)
all have. And it's equally true that where there is no rail link, airports tend to have adequate bus connections to/from the area they serve - even if we're talking small and/or low cost outfits such as HHN, LBC, SCN, DTM, FMO, FKB...

In all fairness, however, where public transport to/from the airport is insufficient, it's up to the airline(s) that choose to operate to such airport to set up transport links, or to live with their SLF's ire. Even Luxair had their dedicated bus link to LUX, back when the City Bus didn't serve the airport as frequently as it does now (i.e. until last year).

Ryanair, who know their business, will always set up a bus link to/from whatever remote ex-airbase they actually fly to, to connect with the place they allegedly fly to. Some of these are doing a brisk business (HHN/GRE). HLX will simply have to get their act toegther at CVT. Welcome to the real world. :E

Not just HLX, but Thomsonfly and de facto TUI as both parent and leaseholder for the site.

There has been a lot of buck passing here - airlines and airports say it is up to private companies to establish links. I can't think of much "vertical integration" in this area in the UK - perhaps easybus MK - LTN - wherever it goes in North London, and the LHR Express is (part?) owned by BAA.

Presumably the Ryanairport buses are run by local private companies - but do they pay Ryanair for the privilege of picking up their passengers? I know they issued a release a few weeks ago about a deal with Terravision - I think at CIA - is this substantially different to the other airports they operate to?

Hopefully the management at CVT will move a bit quicker now to confirm a deal with a local bus operator to get something in place.

evanplus.... its at "Arena Park", where the new city stadium will be soon. You know where the old foleshill gas tower was? Biggest tesco in Europe so they tell us.... and you can get there on one of many buses from the City to get there!!!

Well I'm sorry to be pedantic here but the UK roll call for rail connections is pretty good too.

Rail - Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Birmingham, Manchester, Prestwick

Metro - Heathrow again, London City (open next year), Newcastle

And I just can't help pointing out that, in a close parallel to HLX, both Ryanair's destinations in the UK served from Hahn (STN and PIK) have rail connections whereas Hahn itself doesn't !

By coincidence the CAA's annual traveller survey was published today. Part of it concerns the way passengers reach UK airports.

The capital had the highest proportion of passengers travelling to the airport by public transport, at 34 per cent. Private cars were the most popular mode of transport across the UK: 44 per cent in London, 74 per cent in Bristol and 57 per cent in Manchester.

The airports surveyed were Gatwick, Heathrow, Luton, Manchester, Stansted, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Exeter, London City, Liverpool and Nottingham East Midlands.

WHBM

SOU has a rail station and CWL is getting one next year, albeit I think it will be about a mile from the terminal and will need road connections.

WHBM,

Yes, and you could add SOU to that list for regular services
+ BLK within walking distance (Squires Gate), MME & ABZ within short taxi ride - IIRC, both airports have "stations", but no fixed bus links to the terminals???

LCY also a short walk from Silvertown.

Extend that to 2-3 miles and you could add GLA, LPL, BHD, and I guess quite a few others.

But there is a difference between providing a local service to the city centre - where buses can still often be more flexible by dropping people off closer to hotels - and providing total integration.

A full air-rail hub provides local, regional and longer distance high speed train services in multiple directions.

Within Europe, I would say that only FRA, DUS, CGN, CDG, and possibly AMS and ZRH fit this model. BHX, SOU & LGW are perhaps close contenders, if you call Virgin's new trains high speed. LYS has a TGV link, but services are infrequent, and the link to the city centre has n't been built.

Donquijote airport will be another interesting case, as it is billing itself as being an alternative to Madrid, accessible to downtown by AVE within 45 minutes, despite being even further away than any Ryanairport so far to date.

MV,

I think we were both typing together. CWL will be more of a "halt" than a proper station - is that really going to pull people in over a direct bus? At least somewhere like Paisley Gilmour Street has very regular suburban trains, and links way down into Ayrshire.

Just looking elsewhere, I think the only place outside Europe with full integration (as opposed to a link just to the city centre) is EWR. Anyway, getting a bit ot now aren\'t we?

Also Luton, the Parkway station was only built a couple of years ago with the (free) bus link up the hill.

WNC

Not now, construction of the DLR link (of all things) actually blocks pedestrian access to Silvertown BR from LCY. Lots of buses though.

But then again these did exist before FR, whereas BVA, HHN, LBC, CRL came into existence by the grace of MOL.

Traditionally, local operators were approached by FR, with "Ryanair"-branded coaches promoting FR's fares on motorways all over Europe.
That's how things started at HHN, BVA, and CRL, with coaches sometimes calling at UK/Irish expat hangouts rather than traditional bus/coach stations - the Brussels end of the CRL link used be the Wild Geese pub, and has now been moved to Gare du Midi train station. Don't think these actually paid FR, but things may have changed over the years.
The Girona buslink is run by a local company w/o Ryanair branded coaches, and the terravision deal may also be different, as it does serve more established airports - CIA and BGY had a life before FR, if a less exiting (?) one.

As an aside, German airports if publicly owned will usually tell you they can't set up coachlinks - to protect the national railway, long-distance domestic coachlinks marketed to the general public are apparently illegal in Germany, with the exception of some grandfathered lines to/from Berlin, whose licences date back to when the GDR was still around. So it's a private operator of, say, a shopping mall, or a theme park, or an airline, who will have to set up the coach, and market it as being a feeder to its services, and only that. Enter Ryanair... Yes, I am saying that travelling LUX-HHN-FRA using the HHN coachlinks is technically illegal, even if (or should I say because) it's cheaper and faster than the train. Use LG instead :ok:
Airports themselves will of course organise local buses. But anyone who's ever been to HHN knows that that means some market town in the middle of nowhere (if boasting a train station).

To get back to the original topic, I understand CVT will be having a bus serving the airport "from January at the latest".

I hope it will be sooner, even if just on selected flights where there is demand (especially CGN). I imagine this must be a bit of a nightmare to timetable for, but it clearly needs to be done.

The airport has come on a long way since the launch at the end of March, and passengers I've spoken to are generally extremely complimentary about the friendly and helpful service they get there. I just hope they can remove this "weakest link" from the chain asap.

Anyone got to hear what the first few days of loads are like on the TOM flight to Cork?

Thanks.

Bus service has been launched today, every hour from Pool Meadow, and every half hour from airport.

A much needed and welcome development:O - but still not much good for early morning or late evening flights, as it only runs 07:00-18:30.