It is 0730hrs and I am looking out of the office window wondering quite how I find myself in the same situation as I have done in every previous year for about the last decade and a half. The age-old, post-Easter coach operator conundrum: Not enough drivers and not enough coaches.
I had promised myself faithfully that this definitely would not happen in 2023. On days when we looked particularly stretched, the office staff were to come and speak to me before any extra jobs were accepted. This system works well, until schools and private hire groups that are incredibly loyal decide to book at the last minute, because they know that somehow it will be arranged.
Invariably, we try to cajole a date change out of them, or ask them to tweak times. If they can, they will, but usually they cannot. While the customer sits at home safe in the knowledge that their coach is booked, people like me stare out of office windows trying to square imaginary circles.
I can only see this situation getting worse. Any recession or economic slowdown certainly is not hitting us or other operators in this area yet. With the cost of living rising rapidly, I thought that we might see fewer school trips, because it is the working population that tends to bear the brunt of financial squeezes.
Like many operators, our holiday programme tends to be driven by pensioners. Rising interest rates to combat inflation put more money in the hands of the retired, who don’t have mortgages to pay and have savings in the bank. They seem happy to spend it. Good for them, I say.
There are also a lot fewer drivers and operators about. COVID-19 saw to that. A representative I was talking to yesterday thinks that we have lost between 250 and 500 operators of various sizes over the past three years. Their work has to have been absorbed somewhere.
The flip side of all this – and arguably the most frustrating part – is that rates remain incredibly strong. There is a genuine chance to make hay while the sun is shining.
When preparing quotes, I am trying to straddle the line between a good but fair price for the job, and putting on a stripey jumper and a mask. Invariably, new customers are paying far more than the ones who got me into this mess by booking late in the first place!
I have come to the conclusion that, at weekends in particular, I will give a quote for a job – including looking after drivers by booking 10 hours’ overtime, for that is a regular saying at the moment – and if I am taken up on it, all well and good. If I am not, no problem. At the moment, I win far more than I lose. £400 jobs are now £700 jobs.
So as the silly season approaches us, and the old-school diary or the high-tech booking systems get full to the brim, and like me you don’t know which way to turn, remember: There is plenty of hay to be made, but don’t end up in a wooden box making it. There would be even less of us then! Good luck.