(29 Oct 2023, 6:09 pm)Adrian wrote Yes, but the operating costs were £89.7m, leaving them with an operating loss of £1.9m (not the inflated figure they're quoting). Their operating costs have actually decreased by about £7m, compared to their 2019 accounts, but the real issue is they're down about £7.5m on contract (or 'other') revenue and close to £17m on passenger revenue.
As I posted elsewhere earlier, it seems that the first thought is still cut, rather than grow. It's never going to work in the long-term; you're simply re-arranging the deckchairs on a sinking ship.
Maxfield gets a lot of criticism, and rightly so. At a time the business clearly needs leadership, they've ended up with a glove puppet for NF. It's absolutely ludicrous that they expect their workforce to pay the price for failure at the top.
Honesty can't disagree to be honest. Growth is the answer but they're doing everything but. It'll be interesting to see how much they've spuffed down the drain on agency drivers in the last 2 years. You never know if the drivers were paid properly then maybe they would've never needed them or even better they could actually take on more contract work and that would've made the difference. Then on the passenger how much revenue they've lost because of buses not running at all. I know I would've be relying on them if 1/4 days the bus doesn't run at all.
It's very short termism and has been for awhile especially the jumping the gates of cutting services post COVID while Arriva and Stagecoach held off for longer whether that made any difference who knows but in some Arriva areas they're above pre COVID numbers so it hasn't exactly done anything wrong.