National Express to suspend all coach services

National Express is to temporarily suspend all coach services in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.

The transport firm said it is halting its national network of scheduled coach services from midnight on Sunday April 5.

It said it had kept a limited network of services running to help people with essential travel but it is “no longer viable to continue to do so”.

Chris Hardy, managing director of National Express UK Coach, said: “Passenger numbers continue to fall as the public rightly follows Government advice to avoid non-essential travel.

“The decision to temporarily suspend all services is the right one based on the current unprecedented circumstances and I hope our passengers understand this.”

National Express said that all journeys for before Monday April 6 will be completed and it will “ensure customers are not stranded”.

Passengers will be able to retain their tickets and amend for future travel within the next 12 months, free of charge, or can be issued with a full refund.

Mr Hardy added: “Our drivers, customer service teams, customer contact centre and the wider National Express team have been working incredibly hard to keep our services running safely and we thank them for their efforts.

“We are speaking to them about what this means and will continue to do all we can to support everyone who works in our business at this challenging time.

“We know this is a worrying time. We take the welfare of our customers and employees extremely seriously and will continue to take guidance from the Government to ensure we do everything we sensibly can to keep them safe.”

Shares in the company were down 6.2% at 191.4p on Thursday.