Heathrow Express receives best ever satisfaction score

Heathrow Express is the UK’s joint top performer in the latest National Rail Passenger Survey, achieving its best ever ‘overall satisfaction’ score of 97%. The score is the train operator’s best ever.

The National Rail Passenger Survey gathers the opinions of UK train passengers twice a year, and Heathrow Express has also outperformed other train companies in London and the South East, where the average ‘overall satisfaction’ score was 82%.

The survey states that ‘punctuality/reliability’ has the biggest impact on overall satisfaction, and Heathrow Express scored 96% in that category – 19% more than counterparts in London and the South East. The service, which carries 16,000 people a day between London and Heathrow with a journey time of 15 minutes, also scored 96% in ‘length of time the journey was scheduled to take (speed).’ The attitudes and helpfulness of staff at the station has scored 90%, up 4% year-on-year, and availability of staff at the station has gone up 10% to 87%.

These scores reflect the reasons Heathrow Express has long been the automatic choice of travel for business travellers, but a new range of prices aimed at attracting the leisure market are also having an impact. Heathrow Express has been scored 52% in the ‘value for money’ category, an 11% improvement on the same period last year and 9% higher than any other operator in London and the South East. This reflects the views of customers who are taking advantage of the advanced purchase fares available online which were introduced last year (starting at £5.50) and a new £15 fare which customers can buy on the day, on Saturdays.

Heathrow Express Director, Fraser Brown, said: “It can be difficult to improve on scores that are already good, so I’m really pleased to see that the team’s hard work is paying off across the board. Our colleagues are renowned for their excellent customer service, but in the past it’s been less common for HEx to do well in a ‘value for money’ context. Our advanced purchase and £15 weekend fares have seen passenger numbers increase by 9% so far this year, and it’s great to see that our passengers are valuing the price of their ticket more as a result.”