(01 Apr 2020, 5:15 pm)N1cholas wrote Storx what you need to think about is bus companies have a massive cost every week, a depot with 300 staff with an average wage of £400 per week before tax is £120,000 per week, £480,000 a month, on top of that there is fuel, vehicle maintenance, utility bills e.t.c. suddenly the income drops by 90% with the same overheads, coach companies can not operate because all hotels have closed so they had no option but to close, all operators need help from the government as local service operators have no option but keep running a service because other key workers need to get to work, now lets just make my example of a company the size of go north east with approximate 3000 employees at £400 a week is £1.2M a week in wages alone or £4.8M a month in wages alone and you wonder where the money goes from those "profitable routes / desirable contracts".

Dw I did think about that, aren't half the staff on furlong now anyway so the wage bill won't be that high. I just don't think the bus companies should be getting bailed out as they're not small companies and should have plans to be able to overcome stuff like that without anything any consequences ie losing shares etc. Not to mention 3 depots are closed and half the fleet are off the road.

https://www.go-ahead.com/media/press-rel...m-dividend - Btw I did do some research beforehand and 75% of GoAhead's money is contracted anyway and they believe they can get through this unharmed. They're share price is also still £8.00 so there's money which could be raised there.

I just think bailing out isn't the right thing here there's many other industries in similar issues; gardening, event venues, breweries, airlines, hotels etc and you can't start bailing everyone out we don't have an unlimited money tree. It's more the 'bailing out' part I have the issue with, no-one should be getting free money in the millions especially those that we're privitised for that exact reason. If this continues for awhile then the only money that possibly should be given is to the local LA's / Nexus and let them decide what they want running and what they don't and let them share funds out to continue running a limited service etc such as Boxing Day.