Avanti granted stop-gap extension to UK’s west coast rail franchise

Ministers have granted troubled train operator Avanti a short-term renewal of its contract to run trains on Britain’s west coast mainline after two months of timetable chaos.

The Department for Transport on Friday challenged Avanti to “drastically improve services” as it handed the company a six-month contract extension.

The decision in effect to put the operator on notice followed a period in which half of its services connecting London and Scotland, via several big cities, were cut owing to “severe” staff shortages.

“We have agreed a six-month extension to Avanti to assess whether it is capable of running this crucial route to a standard passengers deserve and expect,” said new transport secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan.

Avanti, run by a joint venture of the UK’s First Group and Italian state-owned operator Trenitalia, sparked outrage among passengers, businesses, MPs and regional leaders when it suddenly announced its temporary curtailed timetable on August 8.

Services between London and Manchester were cut from three to one an hour, with limits put on advance ticket purchases, although last week the operator reinstated some services and promised to return to a full timetable in December.

The move was prompted by drivers no longer agreeing to work on rest days, a move the government and company initially blamed on “unofficial industrial action”, but which unions said was due to a breakdown in relations between staff and management and a chronic driver shortage.

Despite the timetable reductions, which Avanti said were meant to improve reliability, passengers have still faced cancellations and delays — including those heading to this week’s Conservative party conference in Birmingham.

Andy Burnham, Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, said an average of 10 per cent of the line’s remaining services into the city had also been cancelled over the past three weeks, while more than a quarter — 27 per cent — had been delayed.

He has called for the contract to be stripped from Avanti unless there are rapid improvements.

Avanti’s contract was up for renewal on October 16 and former transport minister Trudy Harrison recently said “all options” were under consideration.

A long-term renewal of the contract, which would have rubber-stamped a 2019 deal to run services until 2031, would ordinarily have been a formality. Ministers are in the process of moving all rail operators on to new contracts to take into account the revenue hit from the pandemic.

The short-term extension allows ministers to avoid the politically uncomfortable decision of being seen to reward troubled operators with a long-term contract and gives the companies until the spring to sort out its problems.

There is little appetite within the government to fully nationalise more of the rail network. Other troubled franchises, including Northern and the East Coast mainline, have already been taken into public control.

The Avanti contract includes preparation for running trains on the HS2 high speed rail programme, and rail industry executives have long believed it would not have been feasible for the government to bring this under state control.

Graham Sutherland, FirstGroup’s chief executive, said the contract extension would “allow our team at Avanti West Coast to sustain their focus on delivering their robust plan to restore services to the levels that passengers rightly expect”.