National Express charge a fiver to sit down

12.05.09

Cash strapped National Express is to start charging all standard class passengers a £5 booking fee for return tickets with seat reservations from this Sunday.

It is the highest seat booking charge ever imposed by a private rail company and comes at a time when the East Coast franchise holder is trying to renegotiate its troubled contract with the government.

It will also apply to its East Anglia franchise and cover 25 million passengers who use both franchises every year.

Booking clerks are so worried about the reaction from passengers that they have warned management that they expect regular abuse when they ask for the extra cash.

“All staff will face regular abuse, especially when passengers are spending £223 for an open ticket and then have to pay £5 on top or when a family of four want to reserve four seats and told they will pay an extra £20,” warns an internal memo from the TSSA rail union members in York.

Gerry Doherty,TSSA general secretary said, said: “This is an outrageous imposition on millions of passengers and amounts to the fourth increase in overall prices in just five months.

“What National Express is now saying to passengers is that if you want to be sure of sitting down on their trains for a return journey, then you will have to pay an extr £5 for a return journey or £2.50 for a single.

“That is simply mugging passengers for an extra fiver. And it will hit the elderly and families the hardest. They cannot risk being forced to stand on long journeys from Newcastle to London and therefore they will be forced to pay the extra.”

Two weeks ago the union leader made an unsuccessful plea to Transport Secretary to restrict increases in all fares to one annual January rise a year.
He refused to ban the rail companies from increasing off peak fares and booking fees anytime they choose.