Covid absences could impact East Sussex bus services next week

The bus operator said staff absences is on the rise due to the Omicron variant.

Stagecoach managing director Joel Mitchell said, “We’re already seeing absence rates up by about 200 per cent, and this comes on top of an existing vacancy gap across the bus transport sector in general.

“Despite this, we are continuing to operate the majority of bus services for our communities and we expect the current challenges to be short-term. However, if colleague absence continues to increase in the days ahead, we may need to make some temporary adjustments to timetables.

“While less people are travelling on the bus network overall and many people work from home, it is important that for those who do need to travel to check for updates on our Twitter feed @StagecoachSE and allow extra time for their journey.”