The shock news means ATG Downunder will instead focus on its Darwin operations
Charter and tour bus business ATG Downunder has announced it has pulled its tour and coach services out of Alice Springs.
The decision comes after tourism in central Australia is expected to struggle due to a combination of factors, including crime issues facing Alice Springs and increasing airfare prices.
ATG Downunder offers a wide variety of services to areas such as Uluru and the MacDonnell Ranges, but the announcement means it will relocate its assets to Darwin.
The company is yet to comment on the matter with ABC.
Coach industry veteran Wayne Thompson says the news doesn’t spell the end for ATG Downunder.
“We have withdrawn to Darwin and are still active in Western Australia,” Thompson says in a Facebook post.
“I’m hurting a lot seeing this happen in the centre but I’m sure that the brand will continue onto bigger and better things.”
Thompson says the wider company call still offer fly-in workers a job within its other operations.
After returning to Alice Springs in 2013, Thompson helped merge the company and create ATG Downunder.
He says Qantas’s decision to pull 30,000 seats out of central Australia made it impossible to guarantee tours and continue operating in the area.
As well as struggling to retain drivers, Thompson says these series of factors all contributed to the decision.
In his post, Thompson says the business resorted to fly-in fly-out (FIFO) drivers after COVID lockdowns, but the NT government’s decision to give the contract to another operator at a lower bid hasn’t helped.
He says the group was “blessed with many top operators” and extended his thanks to the likes of Russell Harvy, Ronny Johnstone, Dan Phillips, Murray McLeod, Ruka Mukuru, Matty O’Connell and Ben Doolan with their help with ATG Downunder in Alice Springs over the past decade.
Australasian Bus & Coach has contacted ATG Downunder for comment but is yet to hear back.