The government has agreed to scrap one of the two services to Calvia resorts. The original plan had envisaged separate services to Magalluf and Santa Ponsa; there will now be just the one. The other routes - to the bay of Alcudia, Cala Millor/Cala Bona, and Cala d'Or/Porto Petro - remain unaltered. However, the frequency of services is to be lowered for each route and the fares are to be increased.
The lowest fare of five euros for the Calvia routes goes up to seven euros. For Alcudia it will be ten euros, Cala d'Or nine euros, with Cala Millor yet to be determined, but probably twelve euros. Another route - to Cala Ratjada - is planned for 2018. For Alcudia and Calvia there will be twelve services a day, Cala d'Or will have ten and Cala Millor fourteen.
In each case, where applicable, the routes will also serve municipalities with 15,000 or more residents. For the Alcudia service, for instance, it had already been announced that it will stop in Inca.
The government has also agreed that the services should operate all year round and not just between May and October. A new shuttle service between the airport and the intermodal station in Palma, which the government announced late on in the negotiations, has been dropped. Instead, there is to be a direct service between the airport and Son Espases Hospital.
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So once again the politicians and taxi drivers connive to fleece the tourists. Oh what a surprise!
So the Taxi drivers won again !!!! Not surprising ? Surely its up to the bus companies to decide routes fares and frequency not the government . I hope the fares are the same for residents as non residents as the buses running from the bus station have different prices for tourists and residents.
I see that the proposal includes these buses serving municipalities. I assume the fares charged will be across the board irrespective whether tourist, non resident or resident. If this is not the case then I see another Soller train situation with a trip to the EU Courts.
What a gutless bunch are running the government in Majorca,you should have stood firm against these blackmailers,the majority were against them and once they felt the financial pinch,they would have caved-in. Instead,you rolled-over and now you have given ammunition to other sectors that might plan strike action,you will regret giving in to the taxi drivers.
Looks like the government has backed down on this, and given the taxi drivers what they want. We will now have a very watered down service from the airport to a few resorts. They have cancelled plans for a bus from the airport to the Intermodal station. I still cannot understand why. The simple and most effective solution would be to bring the airport to city bus no. 1 into the Intermodal station. (At the moment it is only for TIB buses - so obviously money has to change hands). There is plenty of capacity there with bus and train connections all over the island, cafés, supermarket, information - even a left luggage point. This would be a first class welcome to Palma for tourists. Before the station and Parc Estacións was built, one just had to cross the Soller train track from the old bus station and the airport bus stop was there. Now if you arrive at the Intermodal you have to drag cases up the escalator, cross the Plaça and find the airport bus stop. Very stressful !!
Just one question that seems to have been overlooked how many busses are going to each resort and how frequent and the most important is , how are the operators going to know how many tourists are going to be waiting for busses to return from the resorts i.e. ( a bus seats 80 people and their is 100 waiting at the stop ?, if it's not a pre book service you cannot possibly account for that scenario
Bargain prices , looking at the price difference for alcudia and Cala bona although it is correct that alcudia is further I suspect that it would be the volume of passengers to that resort , more passengers mean lower prices one would hope "
Some Common Sense has been achieved on both parties. Not sure that Cala Bona should be €12.00 , where Alcudia ( Much further ) is €10.00 !!!. PLEASE PUT A FARES BOARD BY THE TAXI QUEUE AT THE AIRPORT !!!.