More buses take off from Bristol Airport

Saturday 11th April 2026

Another new bus route launched over the Easter weekend, this one linking parts of North Somerset with Bristol Airport. Funded by the Airport and operated by First Bus, the timetable comprises an hourly service seven days a week, twenty four hours a day, giving a significant uplift in journey opportunities for the communities of Portishead, Clevedon, Nailsea and Backwell as well as villages such as Weston-in-Gordano, Tickenham and Brockley.

New route A2 has been introduced coincidental with a number of other changes to First West of England’s network of routes between Bristol and North Somerset including the withdrawal of route X7 between Bristol, Backwell, Nailsea, and Clevedon meaning from a few bus stops in Nailsea and Backwell passengers now have the luxury of a 24/7 hourly link to the Airport but no longer a direct bus to take them into Bristol city centre.

All credit to First Bus for giving full details of the changes on its website well in advance as well as both ‘before’…

… and ‘after’ network maps.

From these, you can see how route X7 (depicted in pink on the ‘before’ map) linking Clevedon with Bristol via Nailsea and Backwell, including the station bearing that joint name, has disappeared and been replaced with new route A2 (shown in dark blue on the ‘after’ map) to the Airport. Residents of Backwell also have the direct route X1 (shown in red) between Weston-super-Mare and Bristol albeit this had a frequency reduction last weekend to every 15 minutes as part of the changes.

New route A2 only skirts the eastern edge of Clevedon before continuing north eastwards via Weston-in-Gordano to Portishead where it terminates at the town’s large Sainsbury’s store on a clockwise loop arrangement.

The A2 joins an impressive network of frequent routes supported by the Airport which link Bristol City Centre (route A1), Weston-super-Mare (route A3) and Bath (route A4). A diagrammatic map on the Airport’s website also shows longer distance links provided by the South West Falcon to Exeter and Plymouth as well as both National Express and Flixbus into South Wales and National Express to Gloucester, Cheltenham and Birmingham.

Routes A1, A3 and A4 like the new A2 also operate 24/7 and with impressive frequencies. Last Easter weekend also saw a frequency increase on the A1 from every 12 minutes…

… to an incredible every 8 minutes…

… giving travellers and staff to and from the Airport, as well as residents living along the route into and out of Bristol (Barrow Gurney, Dundry and Bedminster), a fantastic service which now also includes a half hourly frequency throughout the night to both Temple Meads Station and Bristol’s city centre bus station. New battery-electric buses are “coming soon” too, according to the sides of some buses dedicated to the route.

I took a ride over to Bristol Airport on Easter Monday to try out the new arrangements on what was the second day of the new timetables.

As I exited Bristol Temple Meads Station, there waiting at the bus stop was a bus on the A1 which had left the bus station ten minutes earlier and was pausing for a couple of minutes before setting off on the 30 minute journey to the Airport. There were only half a dozen other passengers on board but we picked up a few more as we headed out through Bedminster towards Parson Street Station. After that I’d expected us to continue along the A38 Bridgwater Road as per the route map…

… so was a bit surprised when we headed through Bedminster Down instead along Bishopsworth Road and King’s Head Lane.

Maybe there was a road closure and I hadn’t spotted the signs indicating a diversion as I doubt the driver would have made a mistake. It didn’t add much to the journey time and, as it happens, a delay was experienced a third of a mile further on by some malfunctioning traffic lights at the roundabout with the A4174 South Bristol Link Road. Luckily there wasn’t much traffic heading out of the city so we got through after only four short green bursts of the lights but there was a very long queue heading into the city which must have been impacting northbound journeys including two buses we passed on the A1 waiting in the queue.

It was noticeable even though we passed buses heading towards the City every four minutes, they all seemed to have a reasonable number of passengers bearing in mind it was mid morning and only the second day of the improved frequency’ albeit a Bank Holiday.

Soon after that we were approaching the Airport itself where there are very clear colour coded signs to segment the incoming traffic…

… and it was good to see buses and coaches are given a priority lane protected by barriers with quick access to what is a large ten bay bus station with easy access to the Terminal Building.

I think the bus station is a fairly recent addition to the Airport scene – it wasn’t there last time I visited although that was a few years ago now. It’s very functional if a bit architecturally brutal and basic.

And I was a bit surprised at how few seats there are for waiting passengers.

And a lack of printed timetables showing departures. However, there is a blow up copy of the diagrammtic map, although not yet showing new route A2…

… alongside electronic boards showing upcoming departures for all bus and coach services both on the concourse and by the exit of the Terminal Building.

And, it was good to see new route A2 was listed except goodness knows why the Portishead terminus couldn’t have either had the shortened ‘Sainsbu’ deleted or the data field increased to include four more characters (ie ry’s). it just looks silly and unprofessional.

As you can see the departure line was also minus a bay number which panicked me a bit as it was quite a long trek from one end of the 10 bays to the other, not knowing where to wait.

However, I noticed that route A3 for Weston-super-Mare was shown as departing from Bay 2 and route A4 for Bath from Bay 3 and had also noticed they were both closed…

… with a notice explaining Bays 9 and 10 were being used instead.

While waiting and using bustimes.org to monitor the location of the incoming bus on route A2 I twigged that buses interwork between the A2 and A3 as a clever way for First to efficiently get drivers from Weston-super-Mare to operate the A2, thus doing a Weston-super-Mare-Airport-Portishead-Airport-Weston-super-Mare routine on an hourly bases and the other A3 (it runs half hourly) working back on itself.

The A4 left from Bay 10, and took about a dozen passengers too, and when the A2 arrived from Portishead…

… and turned into an A3 for Weston-super-Mare that also used Bay 10 so I felt confident I was in the right place as confirmed by the driver of the A2-to-A3 bus. That bus left with a good load on too at 12:18…

… but my bus, the 12:15 (due in at 12:09) still hadn’t appeared and bustimes.org was showing it as running 12 minutes late. It actually appeared 10 minutes down at 12:19.

As you can see it was one of First’s Wright StreetLites resplendent in the Badgerline livery now sadly superseded by new First Bus corporate colours.

Off we set at 12:23 with one other passenger who had come off a plane and was heading for Portishead, so how convenient was that for him? Concessionary passes aren’t accepted to and from the Airport with special fares applying, presumably set by the Airport itself. There’s a single fare of £5 and a return of £7 for routes A2 and A3 (route A1 is £9 single and £15 return with route A4 a rather whopping £17.50 single and £24 return). Normal fares apply once the bus is away from the confines of the Airport which did make me wonder whether passengers tapping on at the ourter end of the route with their concessionary passes realise they can’t reach the Airport without paying a supplement. Locally based residents in certain postcode areas do travel free if they show a valid Diamond Card plus Bristol Airport’s “travel scheme card”.

The first section of the route is common to both the A2 and A3 and gives a rather lovely ride to Brockley…

… along what is a narrow winding road in places through a wood as well as open country as can be seen on the OS map earlier.

Three other passengers joined us during the journey; one from Nailsea to Clevedon, one from Clevedon and one from Weston-in-Gordano both travelling to Portishead where we arrived at the Sainbu (ry’s) store at 13:18 (four mintes down) and just at the time we were due to leave. However, the driver needed to make a phone call with a query about fares…

… so I took the opportunity to stretch my legs and then a couple boarded heading to the Airport because they’re flying off somewhere next week and thought they’d give the route a try out and looking like they were concessionary pass holders that was £14 revenue for the route, which will lead to another £14 next week too.

Heading off five minutes late we picked up a young couple travelling from Clevedon to Nailsea and another in Nailsea and then as we arrived at Nailsea and Backwell Station where I decided to bail out and catch a GWR train back to Bristol, we picked another couple up with suitcase obviously travelling to the Airport which would make all those keen on modal integration delighted, especially if they had arrived at that stop by train.

It’s impressive to see the steps Bristol Airport is taking to promote travel to and from the airport by bus and coach. While I was at the Airport I noticed a South West Falcon coach arrive from Plymouth with a large contingent of passengers alighting…

… and also the same from a couple of National Express coaches which also arrived while I was there.

I didn’t get to see the bus stops along the route of the A2, but certainly the terminus at Sainsbu (ry’s)…

… and the bus stop at Nailsea and Backwell Station had been updated to display A2 timetables which was good to see.

One thing I also noticed returning on the train from Nailsea and Backwell was an automated announcement as we came into Temple Meads Station advising passengers travelling to Bristol Airport to change there for the Airport Flyer Bus route A1 to the Airport whereas, it would be quicker (and cheaper), if times connect, to change at Nailsea and Backwell on to this new A2 on northbound train journeys from the south west.

I also read the timetable has been devised to provide for connections but looking at the times of trains to and from Taunton which call at Nailsea and Backwell, compared to the A2 timetable I must be missing something as integrated times don’t hit me in the face. However, it is good to see through fares are available on the National Rail fares database on both the A1 and A3 to the Airport, but no mention so far of the A2. Perhaps that will follow at the next update.

It might also be opportune to mention that the Airport, as well as Nailsea and Backwell fall within the WESTLink DRT operating area but last weekend saw a significant reduction in service provision in the North Somerset zone with hours of operation scaled back to just Mondays to Fridays and between 09:00 and 14:00 so it can be fitted in between school commitments and operated by North Somerset Council’s in-house staff and vehicles. Individual journeys are also now capped at five miles and only in designated zones.

But, good to see the new A2 providing such an extensive timetable across the 24 hour day for the Airport and the work the Airport is doing to promote travel by bus and coach. Once buses are all in the bespoke livery for the Airport routes it will look very impressive.

Roger French

Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS