Everything about Railair totally explained
RailAir,
Railair or
Rail Air describes a number of
airport bus and coach services designed to connect the
National Rail network to airports in the
United Kingdom. Services are currently concentrated on
Heathrow airport, with one other from
Luton airport. Railair services are operated as
public transport services by or on behalf of train operators, where the whole journey is paid for as a through ticket which combines the railway and bus journey, although journeys can be made using the bus only.
Luton Airport Parkway railway station has since been built closer to the airport.
From 1967,
Thames Valley Traction, (later
Alder Valley), operated a Railair Link coach between Heathrow and Reading in a yellow striped livery as the X25, and later in the NBC coach livery.
Post deregulation
After
bus deregulation, the existing Reading and Woking to Heathrow Railair services passed to private companies.
Privatised Alder Valley, as the Bee Line bus company, owned by Q-drive, operated the Heathrow to Reading Railair service in bottle green liveried coaches as the Rail Air service with marketing for the onward rail links to South Wales and the West of England. When Beeline passed to
First Group, the Railair service was operated ultimately by First Berkshire, which in 2003 relaunched the service with
Scania Irizar coaches. The serviced operates as the First Group branded service
Rail Air.com
.
The Woking to Heathrow service was operated by Speedlink Airport Services in a blue livery. This later passed to National Express, which operated it in a light blue version of their 2003 ‘smile’ livery, in conjunction with Stagecoach group’s
South West Trains subsidiary, also with branding promoting rail connections to the South West.
In 2006 privatised rail operator
Virgin Trains, which is 49% owned by Stagecoach Group, introduced Virgin Trains liveried coaches for Railair links to Virgin trains services, as the Virgin ExpressCoach services, operated by Stagecoach bus subsidiary Stagecoach East.
Current Services
Railair is used as a generic term for these services by the public and airline operators, such as
British Airways at Heathrow, and as a specific brand name of some of the services. Typically, these allow connection from London airports to the north and west of the UK via the rail network, without transferring to central London rail terminals.
With the exception of
London Buses route 285, Railair services are direct express coach services, longer and in contrast to local
airport buses from nearby stations, and offering through ticketing as opposed to bus only ticketed airport hub connected coach networks, such as
National Express Airport branded services.
In 2008
National Express dropped the smile livery for a group wide re-branding, thus more normaly National Express are running the route.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Railair'.
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