Wrightbus

[gilesbus1]

RE: Wrightbus
I think though Arriva go with a policy of best price at a given time more than anything else so it may be that Wrightbus is offering them better deals at the moment than ADL and also the Wrightbus Gemini DL might have better fuel consumption than the ADL Enviro400 which is the other thing Arriva now look for, in future those orders might change especially with new stuff being available from China and Eastern Europe.

First also now seem to be splitting orders between ADL and Volvo/Wright so there custom is also no longer assured, especially if fleet cuts mean fewer new buses are needed in future years.

So this may be something of a swansong for Wrightbus rather than anything more significant.

The truth is the majority of Wrightbuses work appears to now be for Hong Kong and Singapore and two principle customers in the main SBS and KMB, that could be a problem later on, especially if there was ever a repeat on the recession of the early 2000's in that area, in which some operators bought no new buses for something close on 4 years.

Lothian is also now a big quewstion mark as its last buses came from ADL as Volvo had no equivilent length hybrid and its future hybrids are complete Volvo products although there are also 5 Volvo B7RLE's with Wrightbus bodies due for East Lothian Buses due in November/December painted in a mock SMT livery to replace Tridents, however the big question will be when Lothian once again comes to order large quantities of deckers, will they buy Volvo/Wrightbus or switch to ADL Enviro400's or Scania/Enviro400's as those havce been tested as well, so therefore there orders are also question marks so its by far an uncertain future at this moment for Wrightbus as ADL eat into large existing customer orders elsewhere along with Volvo's decision to body its own Hybrid Saloons, as whats the posibility of it also offering the same body on B7RLE's???? or a future deisel bus saloon chassis in order to increase its share of income from orders????