Some of the members are strange, the MD for Arriva in Milton Keynes?
It's not the illuminati - they are a bunch of like minded bus company managers who seem to share common views. Simon Mathieseon has been at Arriva for many years and NX before that.
They've never been entirely great at receiving criticism (depending on who it's from), but I've noticed that lately they've been getting worse. There's been quite a few needlessly snotty and passive aggressive Tweets from both the company accounts and management in reply to some genuine questions people have had recently, including one from Alex Hornby that ended 'I suggest you leave us alone' because it was pointed out that part of the driver shortage they're having was due to the new LCC contracts being taken on without enough drivers.
It isn't helped at all when some of the younger enthusiasts (who can be quite intense with their defending of the company) wade in and try and stick up for them, not realising the people they're getting aggressive with are just members of the public who are rightly annoyed that their bus isn't where it should be. It's embarrassing to read at times.
It's almost as though there's so much praise being banded about in the social media echo chamber between the '10% club' and a few others that anyone else's opinion is automatically wrong and worthless. They'll lay in to an operator who has contravision or third party advertising on their buses, operates a bus with Urban 90 seats or rattles, or sends a bus out in an anonymous livery or with a piece of paper in the windscreen yet when anyone points out, correctly I may add, that Transdev do all of the above they're instantly shot down/ignored/blocked.
It's also fair to point out that there are plenty of other enthusiasts (including some on this forum) who are equally as vociferous about their negative views of Transdev. Mind you, still doesn't excuse the fanboys getting bent out of shape. As always, the truth is usually somewhere in between. Transdev don't always get it right and in respect of Team Pennine, particularly, they have made a couple of poor decisions, and they should be big enough to deal with polite and well-directed (and accurate) criticism. Transdev use Twitter extensively and should be able to cope with a few critical posts, and they shouldn't arbitrarily block people for deigning to complain.
However, in the one that you cite, it wasn't an average question from an everyday member of the public - it was in response to trolling. One person had questioned how many drivers leave (against the figure that AH was quoting) which is fair enough. It was another individual who chipped in and said "I'd be supprised (sic) if you get an answer", and then stated it was partly because of the Ribble Country contracts that were won months ago. The full response from AH was as follows "Lee - you usually don't get an answer because you work for a competitor and you are clearly after a reaction, rather than being productive. I suggest you leave us alone. Thank you." - a slightly different matter than you suggest.
Having experienced, albeit on a fleeting unscientific basis, a number of firms across the big 4 and smaller outfits, Transdev are definitely one of the better operators and I'm not talking about pretty liveries etc. Not perfect by any stretch, and as I've said before, I'm not keen on AH's (self) promotion. However, in comparison to other operators, they are definitely better than most.
Struggling to see how brexit stopped HGV and PSV tests. That was a covid thing. And paying bus and lorry drivers a few pence over minimum wage won't be helping either.
@RELL6L didn't suggest Brexit stopped tests taking place. However, the fact is that in both LGV and PCV realms, a lot of drivers (and other individuals) headed back home to Eastern Europe when the pandemic struck. Because of Brexit, they cannot readily return and that shortage is exacerbated by the inability to recruit and train drivers. Brexit was designed to stop freedom of movement and that was key to staffing driver vacancies in the past.