Government employees shunned Airliner service

Started by Buzz Killington, October 16, 2011, 07:08:18 PM

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Buzz Killington

Deane's Transit Group has spoken about the recent cancellation of its Airliner bus service, saying that few, if any, public servants utilised the service, instead using Cabcharge vouchers to commute to and from the airport in Taxis.

The Airliner service traveled past a number of Government departments every half hour, including the Department of Climate Change, the Australian Taxation Office, Customs, the Department of Defence, the Department of Transport and Regional Australia and the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, yet the number of departmental employees using the service was negligible.

Deane's general manager Jeremy Wee said that the company had also tried to entice staff working at Parliament House to support a direct service to the Airport, to no avail.

Mr Wee told The Australian "Public servants all have Cabcharge. Rather than jump on a bus and save the environment, they'd rather catch a cab."

In the last few months of the service, only a small handful of passengers would catch the airliner service from the Airport, which was a stark comparison to the long queues at the taxi rank. The Airliner service was gradually scaled back to hourly services, before it was cancelled altogether last month.

A 24-seat shuttle bus operated by Royal Limousines replaced the Airliner service, with ten services on weekdays and six on weekends. The bus is currently operating at 20 to 30 percent capacity.

The Australian sought comments from the various Departments, with Climate Change indicating that existing staff had never used the service, however its recent Graduate Program participants had been issued with shuttle service tickets. Defence runs its own shuttle service in its precinct and sometimes to the airport but spent $15.4 million on taxis in the 2010-11 financial year.

ACT Government operator ACTION has not run a bus service to the Airport Terminal since earlier last decade, but does run services to the adjacent Brindabella Business Park from the City.