On 7 February, routeone was joined by Andreas Schörling, Managing Director UK of FlixBus, and McGill’s Bus Group CEO Ralph Roberts, to discuss further expansion of the McGill’s-Flixbus partnership and the Scottish scheduled coach network.
It comes almost a year after Flixbus and McGill’s last expanded their partnership in Scotland as part of broader plans to create the largest intercity coach network in the UK. That expansion added 25 coaches and new routes to the network, and Ralph and Andreas at the time cited strong partnership working and high-quality services as reasons for the success.
The new expansion seeks to build on that, and will see more branded vehicles, 65 new jobs in driving, shunting, maintenance and other duties, higher frequency on the Edinburgh-Glasgow route and a new destination to be announced in due course.
A happy relationship
FlixBus extended its scheduled coach network into Scotland in July 2021 and announced its entrance to the Scottish internal market in August 2022. This latest expansion brings the total engagement that McGill’s has on the FlixBus network to well over 40 vehicles. A new supplier will be officially announced for the new batch, marking an end to the previous partnership with Volvo. Uplift will begin as typically done in spring, and demand is expected to increase for summer.
“Something close to heart for me that I want to take the opportunity to share is that we are very proud and happy to be expanding this partnership with McGill’s,” says Andreas. “We consider it a very valued partner on our network.
“There are several elements driving that. We have a shared set of values; we see the world in a similar way. We have a foundational belief that public transportation is important for society. We want to drive accessibility to affordable travel, and something that we are aligning well is that focus on quality and excellent service that passengers deserve.”
Both companies have a strong growth mindset. FlixBus as a group has grown significantly over the 10 years that it has existed and has grown rapidly since it entered the UK market, and according to Andreas, McGill’s growth of its own core business has, at the same time, been nothing short of remarkable.
Time and consistency
The partnership has been recognised both with external awards for its services and internally for its drivers. Most recently, McGill’s driver Kary-Ann McGregor from Dundee won the 2023 FlixBus UK Driver of the Year award, making that the second year running — it was Glenn Taylor, operating a McGill’s Glasgow to Aberdeen route, who won the inaugural award in 2022. Beside that, Andreas says FlixBus was “in awe” of McGill’s response to extreme weather conditions last year.
“The growth that we have achieved together with McGill’s is remarkable,” Andreas continues. “We started with two vehicles at the very beginning, and it was a conscious choice to launch together and see how the partnership unfolds. We quickly grew to seven vehicles, and by 2023 we were running 25. Now we’re going well above 40. That’s impressive, and what has stood out from our perspective is how well this has been absorbed from the McGill’s side – this is significant engagement, a large-scale operation, but throughout the expansion, and as we reached peak capacity, [McGill’s] has maintained strong quality, high focus and punctuality, good customer service, and the net promoter scores that we are measuring are consistently high.”
From Ralph’s perspective, McGill’s sees the partnership as being focused on people. That is combined with a unique marketing approach. “Looking at it from a marketing level, it’s great to see this from a UK perspective. What the UK needs is disruption within public transport in order to improve the lot, and FlixBus coming along has disrupted the intercity coach travel marketplace.
“People need value for money and we’re on the cusp of a renaissance. We’re seeing the shoots of it in coach travel, and especially interurban coach travel. I believe that there’s space in the marketplace to grow it, and that’s what’s exciting about it.
“It takes trust between two organisations to fulfil a dream and belief in that mission. That’s what we both have: Belief and trust in each organisation that we’re going to do what we need to do.”
Trust comes from investment of consistency and time, according to Andreas. “We’ve now been working together for three years, been through various situations seeing how we react in those, and the trust is coming through there,” he says. “Equally, it takes time to build a customer base, brand awareness, and all of these are things we’ve been building up over time. We’re seeing strong results and that’s why we have trust in the market to continue to grow at the pace that we are.”
Positive year ahead
All this gives FlixBus further confidence in its model and allows it to reiterate confidently the mission to build the largest coach network in the UK. Today it serves more than 60 destinations across the network, and more are promised throughout 2024.
“We are very focused on building a high-quality network and, as such, we are prioritising work with top operators across the industry. McGill’s is a clear sign of that. We also have operators such as Belle Vue and Stanley Travel, and Newport Transport doubling its engagement as well. The focus is on building that network while we scale it to the mission that we have.”
