The biggest issues are the staff turnovers and not being able to replace them fast enough due to issues with the DVLA taking ages to process anything, know people who are waiting about 5 months just to take a car driving test!
The reason there was less complaints to Arriva when they had shortages back in February/March was because most of us were being ordered to stay at home (lockdown) and to combat some of the burden Go North East & Stanley Travel were brought in to cover most runs on the 46 & 51/51A.
I don't think it's wrong at all for passengers to be complaining about their service not being provided and this is not specific to one operator, was in Middlesbrough Bus Station on Saturday afternoon and the queue for the Stagecoach 36/37/38 which had gaps in service was a mile long with some instead opting for Arriva's X12/X22/X66/X67 to reach Stockton.
Lack of communication is another issue, Arriva in particular give you little to no indication as to if anything is cancelled, Go North East took quite a while to think to give an advance list of cancellations for the following day to plan around the disruption (the Twitter cancellation posts are little help in that regard, typically just confirms your suspicions when a bus hasn't turned up).
With all this in mind it's little wonder customers are absolutely cheesed off, the fact companies are now putting out messages to be kind to drivers paints a picture on the ground to the mood as to how customers are feeling about the service being provided.
