I agree the withdrawal of the X9 during Covid made sense as a temporary measure, but to do so permanently is disappointing when the industry is wanting to get more passengers back to the bus.

Now we have just the hourly and longer journey from Middlesbrough to Newcastle, it certainly makes it less appealing and convenient than it was before. I'll use it less often, or maybe even break the journey or use Arriva's X12 when that wouldn't have been a consideration before.

There's always that balance between trying to serve as many passengers as possible, but also make journeys quick and frequent. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I think 'X' express services should go pretty direct routes and not stop or divert all over the place, and they've made a mistake by putting too much onto the X10 route, in my opinion.