- 15 new domestic journeys operating from bases in Bordeaux and Nantes
- Eight new locations added to megabus.com France network – Bordeaux, Poitiers, Rennes, Nantes, Le Mans, Tours, Angers and Chatellerault
- €2.7m fleet of 10 new coaches running new services
- More than 50 new jobs created as a result of latest expansion
- Tickets from €1 now on sale at www.megabus.com
PERTH, Scotland, 2015-11-19 — /Travel PR News/ — Europe’s leading low-fares coach operator megabus.com today (18 November 2015) announced the opening of two new bases in France as it continues to expand its growing inter-city coach network in the country.
megabus.com revealed it has launched 15 new domestic journey options for customers, starting today (18 November).
The routes are being delivered from a new operating base in Bordeaux as well as a crew base in Nantes, creating employment for more than 50 staff.
Eight locations – Bordeaux, Poitiers, Rennes, Nantes, Le Mans, Tours, Angers and Chatellerault – are being added to the megabus.com network for the first time, bringing low-fares, good quality travel to millions more people across France.
All tickets are priced at €1* for travel on the first five days of the new services (18, 19, 20, 21 and 22 November).
To support the latest expansion, a €2.7million fleet of 10 new state-of-the-art leased Scania single deck coaches will operate the new services.
It means that megabus.com now offers around 40 domestic journey pairings in France, covering 21 locations, with fares from just €1*.
The company now operates a fleet of 27 vehicles in France and employs more than 125 staff.
By the beginning of 2016, megabus.com expects to have a fleet of 35 vehicles based in France offering more than 50 journey options across the country.
Tickets for the new routes are on sale now at www.megabus.com.
From today, domestic travel will be available between the below locations:
• Paris – Bordeaux
• Paris – Tours
• Paris – Poitiers
• Paris – Le Mans
• Paris – Angers
• Paris – Rennes
• Tours – Poitiers
• Le Mans – Rennes
• Le Mans – Nantes
• Bordeaux – Poitiers
• Bordeaux – Tours
• Paris – Nantes
• Paris – Chatellerault
• Bordeaux – Chatellerault
• Nantes – Rennes
megabus.com already offers domestic travel between the following French destinations:
• Paris – Lyon
• Lille – Lyon
• Paris – Limoges
• Paris – Brive-la-Gaillarde
• Amiens – Limoges
• Amiens – Brive-la-Gaillarde
• Amiens – Toulouse
• Limoges – Toulouse
• Brive-la-Gaillarde – Toulouse
• Paris – Lille
• Paris – Toulon
• Paris – Marseille
• Paris – Avignon
• Marseille – Lyon
• Toulon – Avignon
• Toulon – Lyon
• Paris – Toulouse
• Mulhouse – Lyon
• Mulhouse – Avignon
• Mulhouse – Montpellier
• Mulhouse – Perpignan
• Lyon – Avignon
• Lyon – Montpellier
• Lyon – Perpignan
• Avignon – Perpignan
• Montpellier – Perpignan
New legislation agreed over the summer means that people in France can travel more freely by coach between cities in France. The new ‘Macron Law’ allows operators to offer domestic services on any routes that are over 100km, including journeys that are part of existing international routes**.
megabus.com Managing Director Edward Hodgson said: “This is another exciting step in our expansion of domestic coach services in France. Our aim is to open up more affordable travel opportunities for people than they have ever had before and we believe our low-fares and good quality services can deliver that.
“We know from our experience in the UK that both coach and rail industries can thrive as part of a wider public transport network and we look forward to welcoming even more people in France on to our services in the near future.”
Fares on every megabus.com journey start from just €1*. All services operate using state-of-the-art vehicles with free Wifi, power sockets, air conditioning and a toilet.
megabus.com previously announced the opening of a base in Belleville-sur-Saône, north of Lyon, with the creation of 75 jobs. The new operating base near Bordeaux is located in Floirac. 10 vehicles will be parked at the base under a partnership with local company Chalavan & Duc. There will also be a crew base in central Nantes.
megabus.com, part of Stagecoach Group in Scotland, has operated since 2003. It expanded from the UK to North America in 2006 and has served mainland Europe since 2012. There are now almost 160 destinations on the megabus,com network in Europe, including London, Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Lyon, Toulouse, Barcelona, Lille, Luxembourg, Cologne, Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin, Hamburg, Rome, Milan and Naples.
megabus.com carries more than 15 million passengers a year across Europe and North America. The number of passengers using the company’s growing coach network in Europe is up more than 330% in the past year. The current average fare on the megabus.com network in mainland Europe is around €10*.
megabus.com offers French, Italian, German, English, Spanish and Dutch language websites. Services are popular with families, students and tourists looking to save money on travel and spend extra on entertainment when they arrive at their destination.
All megabus.com drivers undertake a detailed operational and customer service training programme. It includes route familiarisation and driving assessments and this is in addition to meeting all of the EU standard qualifications for professional bus, coach and lorry drivers. megabus.com ensures full compliance with relevant EU working time legislation and has stricter maintenance standards than legal requirements as part of its commitment to safety.
The success of megabus.com’s services has seen it create more than 500 jobs over the past decade in the UK and Europe and a further 1,000 jobs in North America.
ENDS
For media enquiries, please contact: Stagecoach Group Communications on 01738 442111 or email: media@stagecoachgroup.com
Notes to Editors:
*All bookings are subject to a 50cent booking fee
** Under the new law, less than 50% of seats can be sold for domestic travel on international journeys.
Stagecoach Group
• Stagecoach Group is an international public transport group, with extensive operations in the UK, mainland Europe, the United States and Canada. Stagecoach carries around 3 million passengers a day across its transport businesses. The Group employs around 39,000 people, and operates around 13,000 buses, coaches, trains and trams.
• Stagecoach is one of the UK’s biggest bus and coach operators with around 8,500 buses and coaches. The Group’s business includes major city bus operations in London, Liverpool, Newcastle, Hull, Manchester, Oxford, Sheffield and Cambridge. Low-cost coach service, megabus.com, operates a network of inter-city services across the UK and continental Europe.
• Stagecoach is a major UK rail operator, running the South West Trains, Island Line and East Midlands Trains networks. It has also partnered with Virgin to run the East Coast and West Coast inter-city rail franchises.
• Stagecoach operates the Supertram light rail network in Sheffield.
• In North America, Stagecoach operates around 2,400 buses and coaches in the United States and Canada. megabus.com links around 130 key locations in North America. Stagecoach is also involved in operating commuter, transit, contracted, charter, airport shuttle and sightseeing services.
SOURCE: Stagecoach Group plc.