(04 Dec 2018, 9:36 pm)Adrian wrote Maybe, in theory, people could just support the strike? Most of us won't be able to remember the last one, and I don't think it is a great line of discussion to be talking about how another operator could help with strike breaking.. they're a unionised workforce too!

I don't think GNE would intend to break a strike if one ever happened in the Northumbria area. GNE would however put it's own and it's regular passengers interests first by ensuring there was enough capacity to cope with the extra loads and that services were running as close to time as possible. Wouldn't be very fair that somebody who travels to lets say Cobalt for work on a day in day out basis, couldn't get a seat or even get on for that matter due to GNE needing to take Arriva's own passengers from Blyth all the way to Newcastle and working that out, GNE would need seats for at least around an extra 80-120 passengers per hour during peak times based on 20-25% of the X10/X11 capacity being taken up by those who live in Blyth. And not only that, GNE would also need extra capacity to take passengers who would normally use the 308 too!

(04 Dec 2018, 10:03 pm)mb134 wrote I also imagine GNE customers would have something to say if their buses were all taken away and replaced with single deckers!

It would only be a handful of boards across a few double deck routes where the extra capacity is handy but is not needed. Boards where 30-40 passengers would normally comfortably be seated on a double decker but would be ok on a typical Merc / Omnicity (although a bit tight).