New owner for Surfside buses

GOLD Coast transportation giant Transit Australia Group has sold to the owner of SkyBus in Australia’s largest ever sale involving a private bus company.

TAG announced yesterday its shareholders had agreed to sell the Robina-based operator of Surfside Buslines to AATS Group, which owns and operates airport mass transit operator, SkyBus.

The sale was earlier reported to be worth at least

$200 million.

Melbourne-based SkyBus, which employs 500 people and has services at airports across Australasia, has been on an aggressive expansion path in recent years.

In 2017 it expanded to the Glitter Strip after buying the Gold Coast Tourist Shuttle from TAG.

Last year it launched a service between Byron Bay and Gold Coast Airport.

TAG, launched by brothers Tony and Joe Calabro in 1989 after they purchased Surfside Buslines, today is the largest privately owned public transport operator in Queensland, with a staff of 1400 operating a fleet of 700 buses.

It also runs Sunbus and has manufacturing and engineering businesses including Bustech.

In recent years it has also expanded its international footprint, particularly in the Middle East where it signed a lucrative deal to provide electric buses for Dubai South.