Megabus announce suspension of all services in England and Wales

Megabus announce suspension of all services in England and Wales one day after National Express also cancelled all coaches

Coach operator Megabus will suspend all services in England and Wales by Sunday, owner Stagecoach said.

It comes after its rival National Express also announced it would temporarily stop all coach services in the face of the coronavirus pandemic

Stagecoach chief executive Martin Griffiths said: ‘I am proud of the tremendous efforts and sacrifices of our people and the country’s healthcare workers during such a challenging and uncertain time.

‘We are continuing to work hard to ensure Stagecoach comes through this difficult period well placed for the significant long-term opportunities that we still see for public transport.

‘We would like to thank the respective governments and our local authority partners for their support through this very challenging period.’  

 Coach operator Megabus will suspend all services in England and Wales by Sunday, owner Stagecoach said

National Express said it is halting its national network of scheduled coach services from midnight on Sunday March 5.

It said it had kept a limited network of services running to help people with essential travel but it is ‘no longer viable to continue to do so’.

Chris Hardy, managing director of National Express UK Coach, said: ‘Passenger numbers continue to fall as the public rightly follows Government advice to avoid non-essential travel.

‘The decision to temporarily suspend all services is the right one based on the current unprecedented circumstances and I hope our passengers understand this.’

National Express said that all journeys for before Monday April 6 will be completed and it will ‘ensure customers are not stranded’.

Passengers will be able to retain their tickets and amend for future travel within the next 12 months, free of charge, or can be issued with a full refund.

Mr Hardy added: ‘Our drivers, customer service teams, customer contact centre and the wider National Express team have been working incredibly hard to keep our services running safely and we thank them for their efforts.

‘We are speaking to them about what this means and will continue to do all we can to support everyone who works in our business at this challenging time.

‘We know this is a worrying time. We take the welfare of our customers and employees extremely seriously and will continue to take guidance from the Government to ensure we do everything we sensibly can to keep them safe.’

Shares in the company were down 6.2% at 191.4p on Thursday. 

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