New Airtrain services - effective 15 February 2010

[ozbob]

http://www.translink.com.au/servicechange.php?id=429

New Airtrain services - effective 15 February 2010

Two new Airtrain services will begin Monday 15 February 2010. They will run Monday to Friday between Roma Street and the Domestic Airport to meet early morning flights.

Outbound service    Station             Time

Departs    Roma Street (platform 7)    5.00am
Arrives    Domestic Airport                 5.27am

Inbound service           Station             Time

Departs    Domestic Airport                    5.42am
Arrives    Roma Street (platform 3)          6.10am

[#Metro]

Fantastic!

[somebody]

How many pax did these services get?  I'd have much rathered a 9pm service.

[#Metro]

  AirTrain!

[awotam]

How many pax did these services get?  I'd have much rathered a 9pm service.

If they're going to have a station at the airport, there should be trains running to suit all flight arrival/departure times. I'm off to Adelaide on Weds, for the Rugby 7's among other things, returning Sunday. When booking the ticket, there was a substantial saving on the last flight out of Adelaide, which lands at Bne at 10.20pm. Of course, I knew there would be no trains running at that time from the airport, but there's a Coachtrans bus service which will get me to Roma St, so I thought it would be no problem in connecting with a train there. Should have checked the timetable, shouldn't I?  Any other night I'd be fine, but Sunday... first Coachtrans I can get to Roma St departs at 11pm. Last Ipswich service departs Roma St 11.09pm. Domestic terminal to Roma St in 9 mins...? Don't think so. So now I have a choice between jumping in a taxi and hoping it can intercept the Caboolture-Ipswich service at Toombul (about 10.50 from memory) or taking the Coachtrans service to Roma St, and a taxi from there to Sherwood. Most liveable city...?!?!? Yeah, right! 

[somebody]

If they're going to have a station at the airport, there should be trains running to suit all flight arrival/departure times.

Some international flights arrive at around 3am.  There's no connecting services even if Airtrain were to meet such flights.  That's why they should be focusing on running services when there are likely to be connecting services, and also some chance of bi-directional loads.

[Emmie]

Airtrain has to be made economic for workers at the airport, not just for arriving/departing passengers.  Whenever a plane leaves or arrives, there will be a lot of workers there as well.  Currently it makes very little sense for airport staff to use the service - the price structure needs to change before it will be worthwhile, unfortunately, but getting the commuters off the airport road would be highly desirable.  Pity it's a private operation, so there's no incentive to do so.

[somebody]

Airtrain has to be made economic for workers at the airport, not just for arriving/departing passengers.  Whenever a plane leaves or arrives, there will be a lot of workers there as well.  Currently it makes very little sense for airport staff to use the service - the price structure needs to change before it will be worthwhile, unfortunately, but getting the commuters off the airport road would be highly desirable.  Pity it's a private operation, so there's no incentive to do so.

I think they have some sort of deal.  Problem is unless your hours are fully between 5:30am and 7:45pm you can't use it in both directions.  Don't know about the private operation reducing incentive to give them a deal, workers money is just as good as plane passengers' money.  Also, the frequency is a strong disincentive.

[#Metro]

http://www.airtrain.com.au/workersweekly.php

$25 weekly ticket

Assuming a 5 day week and two trips per day, that works out to about $2.50 per trip.
This is actually cheaper than the TransLink fare on GoCard which is $2.70 per trip for a comparable trip.

There incentive to do a discount deal remains, as there are empty seats on all airtrain services.
Charging too high a price would mean that the seat would be empty and no fare would be collected as the trip would simply not take place. Similar reasoning works in hotel's "last minute deals" and movie theatres offering concessions to pensioners/children/students.