The newly-appointed managing director of Avanti West Coast has claimed the under-fire train operating company has 'turned a corner' after months of delays, cancellations and passenger frustration.
Andy Mellors, who assumed the role last Monday, issued a public apology and said he would be personally 'touring the network' to meet frontline staff in Greater Manchester and beyond.
Speaking in Manchester at a board meeting of Transport Focus, an independent watchdog for transport users, Mr Mellors said train cancellations it was responsible for have been 'driven down over consecutive periods' - a fact he said showed a 'significant improvement' from the 'double digit' cancellations hitting passengers at the turn of the year.
He also revealed 'unprecedented levels of recruitment' into the company and, referencing a recent drive to attract potential new drivers, said more than 1,300 applications were received from women.
It was revealed earlier this month that Avanti had been handed a contract extension by the government, despite its 'poor performance' being under fire. The operator has struggled with reliability with passengers unable to book tickets in advance, and was slammed in August last year for cutting services between Manchester and London. Avanti, which runs trains between Manchester Piccadilly and London Euston, has since gone back to three per hour between the two stations.
Avanti's West Coast Mainline contract was due to expire at the end of this month but has been extended until October 15 with the Department for Transport saying its performance was 'steadily improving'.
Passengers, however, joined MPs and Greater Manchester leaders in criticising the extension, with the mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, saying 'the time for excuses has passed - they either improve or hand back the franchise'.
Mr Mellors, who has previously held senior roles at Great Western Railway, South Western Railway and most recently as managing director of FirstGroup's non-franchised rail businesses, said: "I am really excited to have been given the opportunity to take over running the business and I am really positive for the future in terms of how we can build on some very strong foundations that we have laid as a result of a recovery programme."
He spoke of 'a really difficult time over the last six or eight months' and said: "I am genuinely sorry for the inconvenience and frustration that our customers and communities have incurred, but I think that we have turned a corner."
Mr Mellors, who takes over from acting MD Steve Montgomery, said the new timetable brought in in December 'uplifted trains by 40 per cent'. He told the meeting: "We are now running 264 services every weekday and that includes the restoration of three trains per hour on the Manchester route.
"So a lot more capacity being provided for customers. Performance is also significantly better. Both in terms of our on-time performance with punctuality and also cancellations. The cancellations that Avanti are directly responsible for, like train crew-related issues, fleet-related issues, have been driven down over consecutive periods since the start of that timetable in December.
"There's still more to do but that is a significant improvement over the double-digit cancellations that we were experiencing at the turn of the year."
Mr Mellors said Avanti had 'pretty much unprecedented levels of recruitment going on in the business at the moment'.
"We have got a five year driver strategy, we have brought almost a hundred drivers into the grade or back to productivity over the course of the last year and our recruitment continues unabated, recognising that we have got just over a quarter of our driver workforce who are aged over 55," he said.
"We are really delighted that we have had over 1,500 applications from women as part of that campaign, which I think will go a long way to getting greater diversity within not just the business but the driving grade in particular. I think it's important that I reflect on the progress that has been made, but I am under no illusion that there are still challenges ahead.
"My first priority is that we continue to build on those improvements and drive down further reductions in cancellations and drive up performance and punctuality."
Mr Mellors said he wanted to restore trust and confidence with staff and stakeholders, and would be meeting with, and speaking to, frontline staff at stations and on trains. He said: "I am really heartened that if we can all get going in the same direction that we can once again deliver great things with this business."
He said he was 'absolutely conscious that the fundamental promise of the timetable to our customers is really important', adding: "We have made some good inroads there and we need to continue to build on that."
Avanti passengers have previously vented their anger at not being able to book tickets in advance - an issue Mr Mellors said he recognised had been a 'pain point for customers'. "I am pleased that we have now got weekday tickets available at T minus 12 and weekend tickets back available at T minus eight," he said, a reference to 12 and eight weeks before the date of travel.
"The train planning community within our industry, whether that be in the train operator space or Network Rail, has been under intense pressure over recent months with the amount of re-planning and more re-planning that has been required as a result of some of the challenges, not just with industrial action but large quantities of engineering work.
"We have put additional resource into our train planning team to recover the position and I hope that now we have recovered that we will also be sustaining it. It is really important that we re-establish relations and build on foundations that we have put down and recover confidence in our product."
The contract extension decision came almost six months after Avanti was initially put on a short-term contract by the government and ordered to develop a recovery plan aimed at addressing poor performance on vital West Coast Main Line routes, including between Manchester, Birmingham and London.
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