National Express Coach Review

Overall Rating

On 20th October 2009, I travelled with National Express Coaches from London Golders Green to Stansted Airport. This is the last time I will be travelling with them. Absolutely diabolical service. I asked both the driver and the assistant at the station if they could put my luggage in the hold. They refused and said i have to do it myself. On boarding the bus, the driver said i cannot take my hand luggage on board. I said that i have valuable in it. He insisted i cannot take it on board. so i took out my valuables and put the luggage in hold and boarded the bus and I told the bus driver i am appalled with National Express Customer Service and that I shall not be travelling with them again. I handed my ticket to the driver and he said to me you get off the bus right now and catch the next bus. He became extremely aggressive and said if you dont like me as the driver, you get off the bus right now. I said that i have not done anything wrong and i have my ticket here. He gave me my ticket back and said if you dont get off the bus right now, I am going to call the police to remove you from the bus and you will be holding everyone up. I went and sat in a seat. the driver repeated again that I am going to call the police because of the way you spoke to me. The assistant outside then came onto the bus and started accompanying the driver by saying that he saw how i was speaking to the driver and that i must get off the bus. I refused. The driver finally asked for my ticket and then decided to set off for the airport. I was absolutely appalled at the aggressive manner in which both the driver and assistant deal with customers and have made a complaint on the same day with the customer. I then received a call while i was away despite telling the customer service agent that i was going to be away for a week. on my return, i contacted the customer relations department to speak with Tony and they said he will be back on Thursday 29th October'09. No one else in the department could assist me as they couldnt find my complaint on the system or a reference number. I then asked to talk to a manager by the name of Anne, she also couldnt find my complaint on the system and apologised sincerely and asked me to go through my whole complaint again. She then promised to call me on the 29th October'09, it is now the 4th November'09 and I have still not received a call from her despite leaving a couple of messages for her. I have to say that i had not travelled on National Express for a long time. I am appalled at how their service has deteriorated since I last travelled with them. I shall definately travel with another company like Easybus etc next time as i received much better service with them than with National Express. One has to pay about £14 for a one way ticket to Stansted airport and it just makes me wonder what for! How do you think I must be feeling before setting off on a holiday to be threatened to be thrown off by the police for no reason.