National Express

Undervalued

GDB2222 said:

Thanks for all the info. I’ll let you know if they refund him. 

To answer some of the questions, the 2.45 bus was not expected until 3.55 apparently. The bus he was booked on should have got him to the airport 2 hours before departure. As he only had hand luggage, that meant he had an hour in hand. Not sufficient, apparently. 

The flight is only about an hour long, so it is a bit frustrating to have to allow over 3 hours at the airport as NE suggest. There’s a train service to Stansted, and hopefully that’s more reliable. 

It is frustrating certainly but we have all been there.

For example approaching Stansted from the north on the M11, once you pass J10 (A505) at Duxford you cannot get off the M11 until Stansted itself which is nearly 20 miles. There are regular sob stories about missed flights due to the motorway being blocked. Obviously this affects all road traffic, not just busses. In fact, even twenty years ago, the busses had systems that alerted the driver to known motorway blockages in which case they would take the country route from J10 with an average delay of about 15 mins. However if they didn't get the information until after that point they were stuck with everybody else. No doubt similar potential issues apply in most directions at all airports. Trains too can breakdown or be delayed for all kinds of reasons, frequently not the rail operators fault.

So to some extent it is a case of how much risk you are willing to take.

MilesT6060842

Part of the reason to have travel insurance (check T&C before buying to see what you could claim in case of travel delays to the airport)