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Comment by tpmx | Hacker News Reader

The ground transportation version of Ryanair.

Eh, I wouldn't say that. They're similar in that they're low cost and were very early to embrace internet booking and such, but the quality of the product is quite good IME (whereas Ryanair is generally a considerably worse experience than legacy carriers, FlixBus is as good as or better than any legacy intercity bus networks I've used).

They also seem low on Ryanair arseholery; booking a Ryanair flight, you get the strong impression that Ryanair's business isn't actually flights, but selling extras and collecting fees when the traveler makes mistakes (someone who shows up for their 5 euro flight to London with a slightly oversized bag and having forgotten to print their boarding pass is likely to be paying an extra 50 euro or so, say).

Funny anecdote, last time I took FlixBus out of London (Victoria Coach Station looked like shit btw, wtf happened), they charged me and a few other people extra for "overweight" bags.

Mine were definitely not overweight, I checked them myself. Paid cash in hand - straight into the driver's pocket, I'm guessing.

But I see now that the buses are run by independent companies, so that explains a few things.

Still very cheap :D

Huh. Do they even have facilities to weigh the bags?

But yeah, they might well be more regionally variable than Ryanair.

Nah, FlixBus is actually pretty good.

I used them a lot when travelling in the US and EU, though I will say that they're a lot better at serving the EU.

I once had a really unfortunate situation between SF and LA where I waited for 5hrs for a bus that never showed up. Another driver took pity on us so we got there, but I'm not sure exactly what happened.

I think the comparison is not too far off really. You get the minimum amount of service while the maximum amount of seats is crammed into buses. At least that was my experience with FlixBus. I only use their services when I absolutely have to. I seem to remember that it was much more pleasant before they bought all the competitors.

I agree, Flixbus goes for minimal service at minimal price, just like Ryanair. Space is cramped, the on-board toilet isn't guaranteed to work, but if you don't have to transfer it beats every other method of transport on price.

The original low-cost airline was Southwest Airlines, their business model was copied by EasyJet in Europe, it isn't necessary to be an asshole like Ryanair to be successful.

Well, other than race to the bottom. My understanding is that Southwest is no longer considered especially low cost. And, honestly, I only ever flew them because they were convenient for a couple short city pairs I flew at one time, not because I otherwise liked flying them.

The original low-cost airline was Laker Airways in the UK.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-feb-11-me-laker...

More like the bus version of Uber, they don't own the buses (well, since they've just bought Greyhound, maybe they do now) but instead rely on "partner" companies to own, maintain and drive the buses.

In Germany they have buses labeled with flixbus logos. It didn’t seem like partnerships.

Perhaps partners are how they established a foothold in America?

As others said, all bus partners. That’s also one reason why they could survive the pandemic relatively unscathed. They could scale down their networks pretty well and pretty quickly, for a long time down to zero.

Sucks for the bus partners, but FlixBus didn’t even have any layoffs, at least not in Germany.

(Inside info, I can tell you that FlixBus has been mighty proud of their ability to scale up and down their networks during the pandemic and at least the internally communicated credo has always been that while this is all hard and challenging they might even leave the pandemic strengthened and in stronger position than their competitors, something this acquisition also hints at.)

> In Germany they have buses labeled with flixbus logos. It didn’t seem like partnerships.

Take a careful look at the front side of the bus, driver side, and the front door. There will be the logo of the partner operating the route.

Flixbus and the various companies they bought up over the years requires the partners to decorate their buses in the Flixbus CI (green/orange + logo). Exceptions apply for peak-capacity / spare buses, these however have to be decorated with a magnetically attachable Flixbus logo if in service for Flixbus.

They're all operated by partners. Flixbus only owns a single bus they use for PR purposes.

True, they own one bus and employ one bus driver. Not for PR, but to fulfill legal requirements to be allowed to run a vast network to transport people (as opposed to goods, freight forwarders have no such requirement). Not that the owned and employed driver where ever used on an actual route, at least not to my knowledge.

That is one of the differences between Uber and FlixBus, the latter actually respects regulations. They doing so in creative ways, but they don't ignore them.

Amazingly there are bus-sized vehicle wraps: https://www.wrapstation.it/project/flixbus/

If you have your journeys saved on the mobile app, they also say "Operated by [partner name]".

Is this amazing?

It's not unusual to see an all-bus (or all-train) wrap with advertising, or the logo of the bus (or train) company.

The buses with the logos are the partners, they are not owned by them.

Interesting. In India, there is a similar bus company called IntrCity which partners with other bus owning and operating companies and just apply their name to the service.

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