Frequently Asked Questions – Delays and Misses

FAQ’s – Delays and Misses

What happens in the case of flight delays?

In the event of flight delays we are happy to find you a seat on the next available service at no extra charge, providing there is availability to do so. Equally, if you arrive earlier than scheduled we’ll be happy to find you a seat on an earlier service providing we have seats to do so. It’s not necessary to contact the office, although if you do know well ahead of time that there is a delay it can make it easier to change the reservation. However, we will always defer to the driver at the airport who will know exactly what is available.

Why does the Airporter service not wait for passengers from flights that have been delayed?

Airporter is a government licensed, public transport provider. We hold what’s termed a stage carriage licence which permits Airporter to operate a scheduled timetable operation connecting Derry / Londonderry to the two Belfast Airports.

By law we must operate in accordance with the published scheduled times and our punctuality performance is of paramount importance throughout the operation. Our operation is audited annually by the government and our licence renewal process is a thorough analysis of existing operational performance.

We fully appreciate the stresses that our passengers are under and the impacts that making flights and delayed flights can have in their overall journey & transfer experience. In respect of this, over the past 6 months we have purchased an additional 4 new vehicles and have increased our daily schedules from 13 to 17 departures daily.

It is an unfortunate event that can happen where passengers’ flights do get slightly delayed and has major impacts on their connecting transfers.

We plan to further expand the frequency of our service in the future to assist with these inconveniences and will obviously keep all our passengers informed of these changes as and when they happen.

Will/Can the bus wait?

This is probably one of the hardest customer service decisions that we have to make on a daily basis. We know it only takes 10 seconds to miss a bus, and when you do miss it, you’re left feeling frustrated, very often tired and annoyed. But, we also have to guarantee – as best we can – the delivery of our timetable, so that when our passengers’ book, they know when they will arrive and depart. Our rules are as follows: if we have passengers that are reserved, the driver will wait 60 seconds past the time of departure from the airport. Airporter departure times are strictly adhered to, so if you are booked to leave Derry/Londonderry at (for example) 0530, the coach departs at 0530 on the dot.

What do I do if my flight is too late for last coach or too early for first coach?

You have several options for this one; the one that most people choose is to use our Award Winning private transport which was designed to accommodate one leg of the journey by schedule service and the other leg of the journey by private coach bus (depending on the size of your group). You make all your arrangements with us, we book everything for you and you can choose your private transfer at whatever time you choose, and will be automatically adjusted if your flight is delayed. So for example, let’s say you have an outgoing flight at 3:00pm but the return flight isn’t in until 1:00am – you could take the 11:30am Airporter coach departure on the way out, and we’ll arrange a private transfer to pick you up after your holiday at 1:00am. The cost depends on the size of your group, so give us a shout for more details.

Derry~Londonderry to/from the Belfast Airports

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