Stopped since November 2, BlablaBus has just announced in its last press release to continue this interruption for a few more months. With the mobility sector already affected during the first containment, the buses of BlaBlaCar are again impacted. Illustrated in particular with a drop of about 70-75% in reservations on All Saints’ Day. Zoom in on this sad news, which will however allow the company to focus this winter on its main carpooling service.
A comeback “not before mid-March or end of March 2021, in Europe”
As announced on this Wednesday by Nicolas Brusson, Co-founder and CEO of BlaBlaCar, “BlaBlaCar will not relaunch its BlaBlaBus (ex-OuiBus) offer in Europe before spring 2021. The few journeys booked during this complicated period will be reimbursed“. The main reason given was “to avoid yo-yoing: restart for Christmas, close at the beginning of January” . Indeed, during the first containment in March-April, the group had already interrupted all these long-distance trips. To then resume on June 24th. with a filling rate of maximum 50% the first weeks.
The group strongly hopes that the periods of containment/containment(back) will normally be behind us. As Nicolas Brusson points out, “the announcements of the last few days on vaccines seem to be heading in this direction“. As for the SMEs that supply the buses, they have been “warned“. “It is less harmful to everyone at a time when it is very unlikely that we will be able to fill the buses.” As added by Nicolas Brusson, “It also allows our partners not to operate, with part of the drivers covered by short-time working“, just like part of the employees of Blablacar.
Nearly 10,000 carpool reservations on average
However, in spite of the bus stop, the carpooling platform will remain open to the public, for all journeys that comply with official guidelines. In fact, the carpooling service, which was highly acclaimed by its passengers this summer, has seen “its demand exceed last year’s“. In particular, because it minimizes the number of contacts, by more easily complying with barrier gestures.
And this, even in this period of deconfinement. It is important to note that the number of carpool reservations is currently about 25% of the usual number. This represents an average of nearly 10,000 reservations per day. It’s a good bet that this strategy will allow the company to make up for these losses… As stated by the CEO of BlaBlaCar, in the spring, “people will want to travel and it will be back to carpooling very quickly…“.
