To the Editor:
Reference is made to the column by Molly Purves regarding Peter Pan’s reservation system and describing it as being “punitive” if a passenger doesn’t show up for their trip. With Peter Pan your seat is guaranteed.
Unlike some other bus companies, when you buy a ticket on Peter Pan Bus Lines you are guaranteed a seat. A few years ago, based on overwhelming customer requests, Peter Pan changed its entire route system to a guaranteed seat/reservation system. When you buy a Peter Pan ticket, we take that seat out of inventory and cannot sell it to anyone else — we do not oversell.
Over 80 percent of our customers buy their tickets in advance to guarantee a seat — they want the assurance of a seat on the schedule they have chosen. Certainly, customers can still purchase a ticket at the last minute, at a ticket counter or on a mobile device, right up until scheduled departure time, provided there are seats available on the bus.
With other bus companies on the Cape, customers are taking a chance that there will be a seat available for them when they want to travel. What could be more frustrating/upsetting than to plan to take a bus to an appointment in Boston, or to catch a flight out of Logan Airport, only to find out the schedule you have chosen has been oversold and there are no seats available? That can never happen on Peter Pan. When you buy a ticket on Peter Pan, your seat is guaranteed.
We understand that customers’ plans change — life happens! If the customer has booked a guaranteed seat on a Peter Pan bus, and if they notify the company within two hours in advance of their departure, for a small change fee the customer can change their ticket to any other date/time they want. Furthermore, if a customer missed their bus within an hour of departure time, they can travel on any other available schedule that day for a small change fee — no other company offers such travel convenience.
Another huge benefit of our reservation system is that it allows our operations department to do better planning. For example: On busy Cape travel days, our reservation system allows our operations staff to see that a bus is filling up with passengers several days in advance so we can add an additional bus on that schedule — making sure that we accommodate all of the demand for that schedule.
When a customer buys a ticket on Peter Pan Bus Lines they know they have a guaranteed seat. With other bus companies you run the risk of not having available seats — with Peter Pan your travel plans are guaranteed.
Peter Picknelly, general manager
Peter Pan
