A commuter has spoken out after seeing his train ticket price soar by £800.
Every day, 39-year-old university technician Daniel Wilson used to travel into Manchester on the 7.45am train from Stoke-on-Trent.
However, from today, the service is being cancelled.
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While the suspension is noted by Avanti West Coast as being a 'temporary measure' as a result of staff shortages, Daniel now faces paying an extra £800 to get the right ticket to travel into work every weekday.
Daniel still has five months left of his Avanti-only annual season ticket, which set him back £2,800.
However, the cancellation to his usual train means he will have to use other train providers in order to get to work on time.
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Daniel will also now have to get the 6.58am or 7.27am train, and both are much slower than his usual service.
He told StokeonTrentLive: "It would mean another 20 minutes journey time for me and it would cost me another £800 on top. There will be a 25 per cent increase in the fare.
"Those with Avanti-only season tickets are basically stuck because you’ve either got to get a later train and be late for work or you’ve got to find £800."
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Daniel explained how he was in 'disbelief' when he first heard about the cancellation of his usual train, so much so he at first thought it was 'a clerical error'.
He noted how station staff similarly viewed it as 'absolutely insane' because of the service being 'one of the busiest trains of the day'.
"On a Monday, there’s probably 150 people on the train. But when it gets to Wednesday, you can easily get 400 people.
"People are flexible working so many don’t have a season ticket and are just buying daily tickets. There’s not as many people using the trains, so it’s probably not financially viable. But they could’ve run the first train in the morning and cancel one in the middle of the day to compensate," he said.
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The electrician also stated his confusion at Avanti's justification that the service had to be cancelled due to staff shortages.
He said: "They are blaming a lack of train crew, which is quite interesting as they ran this train and the later train at 8.25am all the way through the pandemic and coronavirus lockdowns.
"There’s something seriously wrong with Avanti."
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Daniel reflected: "It’s incredibly gutting because I now need to find an extra £800 a year to get to work.
“The cost of living is going up really high too. It’s an extortionate amount of money I’ll have to pay."
The commuter has since got in touch with Avanti to request some sort of compensation given the added price of another season ticket.
He said: "The problem is if you’ve got your season ticket you would have to get a refund and then buy an any train season ticket, but you won’t get all your money back because there’s an administration fee. On a season ticket, you get the last two months on your ticket for free and they take that off straight away.
"I’ve got five months on my ticket left, but I’ll only get three months plus the admin fee off of it back. That’s not fair considering you've just changed the season ticket. The reason I bought the season ticket is because it operated on the hours I needed to get to work. It seems very unfair."
Not only this, but Daniel noted he hopes commuters will be given 'reassurance' the 7.45am service will eventually be reinstated.
However, Daniel explained: "[Avanti] have promised lots of things when they took over from Virgin trains and we are yet to see the impact of it."
A spokesperson for Avanti West Coast told LADbible: “The 07.45 Stoke-on-Trent to Manchester Piccadilly train has been withdrawn until September as a temporary measure due to staff shortages. The train is planned to return in September and our timetable is subject to regular review in collaboration with stakeholders from Government, Network Rail and industry partners.”
Poppy Bilderbeck