A 10-year-old venture centred on one of the Baltic states has shown the potential for express coach travel to appeal to a more affluent market looking for much more than simply the cheapest seats
If the title of this article looks familiar, that may well be because it was the question raised in the editor’s comment in September Buses.
The launch of RoadJet, a two-vehicle scheduled inter-city coach operator in Germany, led us to ask whether its focus on luxury, using tri-axle double-deckers with 44 seats in 2+1 configuration, was a better way ahead than trying to cram as many passengers aboard as possible by selling tickets at rock bottom prices.
Its fares were typically €10 higher than those of market leader Flixbus, but its founders were convinced that there is a market to be tapped from those prepared to pay for comfort and personal space. ‘We travel a lot ourselves and saw that there was no coach equivalent of first class rail travel,’ said one of them, Mujib Bazhwal.
Lounge seats attract better off travellers and car enthusiasts
Our suggestion that RoadJet might possibly be on to something brought an email from Hugo Osula, whose Lux Express business has been doing something similar in the…
