Current Operations
On 12 January 2009 Lucketts Travel took over operation of all the National Express routes from Portsmouth- London- Portsmouth, Chichester- London- Chichester and also Portsmouth- Bristol- Portsmouth. As part of this contract, 12 new "58 plate" Caetano Levante coaches have been purchased, all with Scania engines. All the driving and operations staff were transferred from Tellings-Golden Miller, the previous operators, to Lucketts Travel at the date of changeover. Since the start of the contract, 2 additional "09 plate" vehicles have also been added to the National Express fleet (in face of the competition from Firstgroup's "Greyhound" services), one of which carried a special "Armed Forces Day" livery, and another (FJ09AOZ, fleetnumber X4965) carried a special silver livery for the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton in April 2011). In August and September 2011, four new Volvo B9R / Caetano Levante 2s were delivered for National Express duties - these will displace four of the original Scania / Levantes - two for general fleet duties (which will be painted in the corporate livery), and two for National Express special and duplicate journeys.
The bulk of the current coach fleet (including that of the Worthing Coaches and Flagship Eastbourne subsidiaries) is made of Scania chassis with Irizar bodywork, however there are also several Mercedes and Toyota/Caetano minicoaches, and five Volvo B7TL double-deck buses with Alexander ALX400 bodywork, which are mainly used on school contracts. The school contracts are supplemented with a fleet of six decicated school coaches; three Dennis Javelins with Plaxton Prima bodywork, and three Scania K230IB / Irizar Intercentury - all six are painted in a yellow livery, and seat 70 in a 2+3 arrangement with seatbelts.
The latest additions to the fleet are three Scania K400EB4 vehicles with OmniExpress bodywork by Finnish company Lahden (YT11LPA/C/E), bringing the total within the company to five, the other two being acquired in 2009. Two further examples followed in the summer (YT11LPU/V), although these may be loan vehicles, as they are in all-over white livery, and carry legals for Scania, with Luckett's details being displayed in the lower entrance door - nevertheless, they have been allocated fleetnumbers - 5361 (LPV) and 5360 (LPU).
Two new Irizar i6 Integrals with DAF engines were delivered in April 2012, displacing the Scania Irizar PB as the platinum class coach in the fleet.
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