"Each day is totally different, and coaching allows me to be a better me".

At Alpine Travel we pride ourselves on actively recruiting the right people for our vacancies and actively enable and encourage progression  through experience and training to be the best that they can be.

Tour Coach Driver Joel Thomas joined Alpine Travel in 2015 and has since trained and qualified to become a tour coach driver... here's Joel's story.

Career Beginnings

Before Alpine I was a manager in an extremely busy restaurant working around 60+ hours a week. My duties included managing a team of 15, taking beer stock and ordering, finances, general running of the restaurant on my shifts, dealing with complaints and coming up with different ideas to better improve not only our service, but how we could get our percentage of people through the door up.

I first thought about becoming a lorry driver but being in the restaurant business for 6 years I find myself more of a people person so working on the lorries wouldn’t have suited me. I looked at Alpine having found them online and contacted them to enquire.

New Challenges

I first started at Alpine on 11 December 2015. I was called in to shadow other drivers to see how the operational side worked whilst Alpine gave me the opportunity to take my PCV test.

Training started once I had received my provisional license. The training included being taken out by an experienced driver in an empty coach to start with to give me the opportunity to feel what it was like to drive something a lot bigger than my Renault Clio!

Also it gave me the opportunity to speak to those drivers to find out about the different work that occurs on a weekly basis so when it came to passing my test I would have a rough idea what to expect.

Expanding Experience

Once I passed my three day test that Alpine had helped me finance I was then further shadowed both behind the wheel and in the depot.

By law we must abide by the Driver Certificate of Professional Competence also known as CPC. This means we must do 35 hours of

classroom training over 5 years to enhance our knowledge of the different policies and methods needed to be an effective coach driver.

Part of the Team

The thing I love about my job the most is feeling part of a close knit family, make friends for life and knowing if I need help there is someone always there to talk too.

The second thing I love most about the job is being able to travel and see new places you don’t get to do in a 9-5 job. Seeing the enjoyment on our passengers faces as we pass through many of the scenic routes we take. Also having a 3-course meal each night isn’t bad either!

A Promising Future

In my life I want to be able to earn but enjoy life too.

In this job you can earn but also make the most of each day whether it’s walking around the city of York to being given the opportunity to walk parts of the Wales Coastline having brought Americans here.

Each day is totally different, and coaching allows me to be a better me. It gives me a better understanding of the UK but also abroad.