ALSA (bus company)

ALSA (Automóviles Luarca, S.A.) is a Spanish subsidiary of the UK company National Express Group, which operates bus and coach services in Spain and other countries across Europe, including Andorra, Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and Ukraine. It also has operations in Morocco.

ALSA also had operations in China and Chile, but these were retained by the previous owners of the company and are not owned by National Express. [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4329540.stm BBC News] ]

When ALSA was incorporated in 1923, it was merely a regional operator based in Luarca and Oviedo, in the Spanish northern region of Asturias.

History

In the 1920s and 1930s the Alsa flagship service was the 170km Oviedo-Luarca-Ribadeo route, northwest from Oviedo, with thirteen fixed and thirty occasional stops, a 10 hour journey. This was later extended to Coruña.

In the 1940s and 1950s ALSA extended its network through central and western Asturias. In 1962 the company started a route from Oviedo to Madrid, and in 1964 started its first international service from Oviedo to Paris and Brussels. The company expanded continually to become the leading Spanish road passenger transporter in the 1980s, and by 2000 covered most of Spain and Western Europe.

In October 2005 National Express took a majority shareholding in ALSA. However for the time being the ALSA brand is retained in all markets.

In 2007 National Express acquired Alsa's main Spanish competitor, Continental Auto.

Fleet

In its early years the ALSA fleet was based mainly on NAG and Saurer vehicles, with some additional GMCs, Renaults and Hispano-Suizas, but in 1939/40 they bought around seven British ACLO normal control coaches, which in the early fifties were followed by eight forward control units of the Regal III model of the same make, with bodies by Seida of Bilbao.

Later, ALSA switched to an all-Pegaso buying policy, initially still with Seida bodies, and later with Monotral, Setra-Seida, Ayats and Irizar coachwork; to turn in the early 1980s to Mercedes-Benz O303 and O404 chassis with successively Maiso, Hispano Carrocera, Sunsundegui and Noge Spanish bodies.

Mercedes-Benz is still the main ALSA chassis provider, but the top-of-the-range three-axled Setras are the current flagships of the ALSA fleet, many of them in the "Clase Supra" top-class specification.

External links

* [http://www.alsa.es/?portal.alsa.request.locale=en_GB Official website (English version)]
* [http://www.bjalsa.com.cn/ Beijing ALSA]
* [http://www.aecsouthall.co.uk/northspain/00_aclo.htm Page on ALSA's ACLO buses]