Stagecoach chief executive to stand down August 22, 2012 Stagecoach chief executive Brian Souter will stand down and become the company’s chairman in May 2013, replacing George Mathewson who is retiring. The transport group also said it had traded well in its first quarter due to a strong performance from its British rail and US bus businesses. The Scotland-based company today said like-for-like revenues [...]
Virgin launches flights on West Coast rail route August 20, 2012 VIRGIN Atlantic will today announce plans to operate flights between London and Manchester, just days after its sister firm Virgin Trains lost the right to run rail services between the two cities. Richard Branson’s airline will start flying between Heathrow and Manchester airport in March 2013 and says this is the first step in building [...]
Rail fare revolt gains momentum August 19, 2012 CONSERVATIVE MPs yesterday hit out at proposed increases in rail fares and called on the government to do more to help cash-strapped commuters. Backbenchers in marginal constituencies are preparing to lobby the government to act on travel costs after a furious public reaction to last week’s announcement that average fares will increase by 6.2 per [...]
How UK business can match Team GB’s performance August 19, 2012 A WEEK since the Olympics closed, some commentators are already talking post-Games blues. But this is our honeymoon period, our chance to capitalise on a successful fortnight of the UK at its best. We’ve witnessed an amazing journey. An east London wasteland has been transformed – 1.5m cubic metres of contaminated soil was painstakingly cleaned, [...]
All aboard the magnificent Orient Express August 19, 2012 ITALY’S in debt, you say? Well, I’m on the Orient Express headed straight to Venice – fiddling while Rome burns, you might say – and there’s no sign of the Italian economy crashing here. As if to prove my point, the flamboyant Massimo shows me another popular purchase from the train’s on-board shop. “These diamond [...]
Firstgroup caps rail bid liability August 15, 2012 RAIL group FirstGroup yesterday reassured investors that potential losses on the hotly-contested West Coast main line could not exceed £265m, as shares in the firm slumped on news it had won the contract. The rail operator yesterday beat off a bid from incumbent operator Virgin Rail Group to land the Scotland to London route, with [...]
Balfour Beatty wary over UK as emerging markets drive revenue August 15, 2012 BALFOUR BEATTY, the UK’s largest construction company, yesterday said it could not foresee when there would be a pick-up in its home market where its own order book was down three per cent, outperforming a 10 per cent fall across the industry. It said its focus in recent months on winning contracts in industries such [...]
Commuters face fare hike as taxpayer subsidy is cut August 14, 2012 COMMUTERS are set to come in for a hammering from January next year, when rail companies are next allowed to raise fares. Individual fares will be lifted by up to 11.2 per cent, as part of the Department for Transport’s (DfT) plan to shift costs from the Exchequer to the passenger. The cap on regulated [...]
Osborne faces a delicate balancing act on train ticket hikes August 14, 2012 WHEN the majestic Shard formally opened earlier this summer I was interested to learn that its architect Renzo Piano only catered for 48 car parking spaces in the building’s bowels. “It’s another big shift,” he was quoted as saying. “To tell people, look, stop going around in cars.” Piano’s thinking makes a lot of sense. [...]
Commuters are sick of fare rises: Let’s plug the democratic deficit August 14, 2012 COMMUTERS are suffering from more than just the symptoms of an Olympic hangover. Once again, the annual ritual of fare increases is upon us. Some newspaper headlines have declared increases of 11 per cent. In fact, the average increase for the so-called “regulated basket” of fares, due to come into effect in January 2013, is [...]