Avanti ceases selling walk-on tickets

Despite my vote of no confidence in Great Western Railway (above), I suppose most people would reserve the accolade of worst operator for Avanti at present, for a whole host of issues: massive timetable cuts, grossly overcrowded trains, declassifying First Class and Standard Premium, and so on.

In reality, Avanti really wants an airline-style book-ahead-only system, and has made no secret of the fact that it considers walkon users (at best) an inconvenience. Nevertheless, it knows what it signed up to.

In The Fare Dealer for RAIL 964, I explained how a lot of operators on long-distance journeys are failing to offer the cheapest walkon tickets online if a train is busy.

LNER admitted it now sells all tickets (Advance or walk-on) with a compulsory reservation, and that once the reservation quota is used up, it ceases selling.

The industry has allowed this to creep in. What right has an operator to refuse to sell a ticket that can be obtained from a ticket vending machine (TVM) on the day? Do they make clear that a walk-on ticket sold with a reservation is still valid on any other train?

I also told of a reader who wanted a £68.60 OP single from Runcorn to Euston on the 1103 Avanti West Coast service on a Saturday, but the Avanti website refused to sell it. Yet when he rang Avanti to complain, he was told this is ‘industry wide’ and that it simply meant that all reservable seats were taken - but that our reader could simply buy from a TVM on the day.

This cannot be acceptable. An OP single is valid any train, and Avanti even has a coach for those without reservations - yet it won’t sell the ticket online if it can’t offer a reservation, even one the customer doesn’t want. Nor does the site say the ticket can be bought from a ticket office or a TVM on the day. I know Transport Focus is very concerned about this.

Then, last week, someone told me he noted on Avanti’s site that for a train from Penrith to Euston in two months’ time, no walk-on fares were available. When I suggested he could buy from a TVM on the day, he rightly reminded me that the new Avanti TVMs require users to insert train times, even for a walk-on ticket.

So, does that mean even the TVM would refuse to sell the walk-on fare? The only way round that would be inserting a permitted route avoiding Avanti (say, via Manchester & Leicester) just to get it to issue a ticket, which would still be valid on any Avanti service.

What a way to deter travel, even for those who know the rules. All operators should be obliged to sell walk-on tickets on demand for all trains unless they are specifically shown in the timetable as “compulsory reservations”.