Avanti, one of Britain’s least reliable train operators, has been awarded a long-term contract to keep running intercity services on the west coast main line.
The transport secretary, Mark Harper, declared Avanti “back on track” – although the regulator’s most recent full performance report showed it was the least punctual operator, with fewer than half of services running on time from April to June.
The RMT union described the contract award as “a travesty” and Avanti as “an unmitigated disaster”.
The firm, a joint-venture between First Group and TrenItalia, had previously been given two six-month extensions to its contract with a warning to improve. Avanti became a byword for failure in 2022, abandoning its normal timetable and scheduling only a fraction of the trains on the line linking London, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow.
However, the Department for Transport on Tuesday pointed to “dramatically reduced cancellations” and 90% of trains running less than 15 minutes late, with more than 100 additional drivers trained, addressing the staff shortages that contributed to Avanti’s problems.
The number of services has increased from 180 trains a day to 264 on weekdays, and the DfT said cancellations fell to 1.1% in July.
Avanti will run the line for up to nine years, with the contract potentially terminated after three.
The deal is a renewed management contract, according to FirstGroup, where the DfT “retains all revenue risk and substantially all cost risk”.
The joint-venture, officially called the West Coast Partnership – originally expected to help bring HS2 trains into service – will earn a fixed annual management fee of £5.1m and up to £15.8m a year in performance payments.
Another long-distance operator, Arriva’s CrossCountry, has been given an eight-year contract, with a minimum of four years. It was the second least punctual after Avanti from April-June this year, according to the ORR, with the worst cancellation score of any DfT contracted operator in England.
Harper said: “The routes Avanti West Coast operate provide vital connections, and passengers must feel confident that they can rely on the services to get them where they need to be at the right time.
“Over the past year, short-term contracts were necessary to rebuild the timetable and reduce cancellations. Now Avanti are back on track, providing long-term certainty for both the operator and passengers will best ensure that improvements continue.”
Labour MPs and rail unions criticised the decision. Louise Haigh, the shadow transport secretary, said: “Passengers who rely on this abysmal service will be appalled that, despite being almost rock bottom of the league table for delays, Avanti is being awarded a lucrative new contract.”
Speaking in the Commons, Mike Amesbury, the MP for the Cheshire constituency Weaver Vale, said: “It seems that this contract has been rewarded on the basis that it’s a little less crap than it used to be. Is that really the way to make a decision in government?”
The transport minister Jesse Norman replied that the “possibly unparliamentary language is not something that I would want to repeat, even if I thought it was accurate”.
The RMT general secretary, Mick Lynch, said: “Avanti are one of the worst rail companies on the network and it is a travesty that they have been awarded this contract.
“From supplying inappropriate uniforms to staff, mass cancellation of train services and multiple industrial disputes, Avanti have been an unmitigated disaster. They are incapable of running an efficient rail service or treating the staff properly.”
Lynch said CrossCountry were “little better”, adding: “By granting companies like Avanti and CrossCountry with lucrative taxpayer-funded contracts, the government is rewarding abject failure.”
The FirstGroup chief executive, Graham Sutherland, said: “Our West Coast Partnership team has worked hard over recent months to deliver improvements for Avanti passengers, including an increase in the number of services in the timetable and high levels of reliability for customers.”
The independent watchdog Transport Focus said there was evidence of improvement. Its director, David Sidebottom, said its latest user survey found passenger satisfaction with Avanti was now at 87%, the highest level for more than a year, adding: “Satisfaction with punctuality and level of crowding is also recovering, although still lower than previous levels.”
