Wednesday 3 February 2010

Adonis to strip FuCC of franchise in April?

Poor old FuCC.

Her Majesty's Daily Telegraph has now joined the legion calling for First to be stripped of the franchise:

The Government could do this as early as April because of a "break clause" allowing the Department for Transport to remove the company for poor performance after four years.

Eye thinks not.

Our resident legal expert, Hugh Fee, points out that the 10th April termination date referred to in the contract was dependent on performance between April 07 - April 08.

So whilst the Noble Lord might huff and puff he still can't bring FuCC's house down.

UPDATE: This from Thameslink Tommy...

Poor Neal Lawson don't you mean.

The guys only been in the job two weeks and he's already been roasted by the High Speed Evangelist.

Your readers might be interested to know that the shortfall in FuCC's driver establishment had its origins in the obsession with driving out costs championed by a previous MD.

Obviously the elimination of "spare drivers" was seen as an easy target.

Older hands knew that this wasn't wise but in the aggressive management climate that existed at the time no one felt brave enough to say so.

So as drivers left, no replacements were recruited and over time cancellations due to "driver shortages" became more and more frequent.

Hopefully driver spare ratios are being maintained over at East Coast?