Disgusted Manchester commuter told to pay £800 more after train cancelled

A commuter who travels to Manchester from Stoke-on-Trent has hit out at an 'insane' £800 fare hike caused by a train cancellation.

Daniel Wilson regularly uses the 7.45am service, which Avanti West Coast has 'temporarily' axed from today (May 16), StokeonTrentLive reports. The train operator said the decision is linked to staff shortages.

Daniel uses the busy service to travel to Manchester from his Northwood home during the working week. The 39-year-old university technician has already spent almost £2,800 on an Avanti-only annual season ticket, which he has five months left on.

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He must now fork out an extra £800 for a season ticket that would allow him access to other train service providers so that he could get to work. It means that from today, he will have to get either the 6.58am or 7.27am train to get to work on time. Both of these trains are slower than the 7.45am service.

Daniel said: "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. I was in disbelief, I thought it was a clerical error at first. The station staff have said this is absolutely insane.

"It’s one of the busiest trains of the day. 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.

"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