Oliver Townsend is the Chief Executive Officer of Knutsford Express Limited. Mr. Townsend has served in the Tourism and Service Sector for over 26 years in various management capacities including those that involved marketing locally and overseas. His career began in Caribic Vacations, a family-owned destination management company, where he served as Director of Transport and CEO.

He also serves as Director of Caribic Vacations Limited. Mr. Townsend holds a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the New York Institute of Technology, as well as an MBA from the Florida International University.

Knutsford Express Limited – We Are Excited About The Future Of Our Company

Knutsford Express began changing the way you travel on June 1, 2006, and our mission has always been to provide world-class service to our customers. Whether you’re taking one of our coaches for a trip across the island, or need to send a package locally or overseas, we’ve got you covered.

We now serve 18 major towns in Jamaica, including connections to both major International airports in the country, Norman Manley International Airport and The Donald Sangster International Airport.

Our offices are located in convenient spots islandwide so that we can be there for you, whether you’re an individual or an organization.

We’re always striving to improve our services, and now, we even offer online shipping services, airport shuttle services, and pickup services for select locations. If you sign up for a Courier Plus account, you can access even more KE benefits and take advantage of our competitive and affordable rates.

The trends in travel that we observed in the latter period of the prior financial year has held true, as travel has returned with a groundswell. The upsurge or return seems sustained and Jamaica’s Pax arrival figures continue to outpace trends and keep breaking records.

Being considered Jamaica’s premier island-wide transport solution, coupled with the aforementioned trend continues to reinforce the extraordinary responsibility, privilege and expectation to improve our customers’ lives. In a challenging environment we are dedicated to nurturing this trust through undiminished efforts in maintaining and improving our level of safety, reliability and convenience.

We have in this period, set into motion solutions including the ordering of several premium double decker and full-sized coaches equipped with toilets, charging points, and other Knutsford Express conveniences. In an effort to add convenience to the lives of our customers we have begun development of innovations that will truly streamline the process of booking and checking into trips to reduce wait times at our stations.

Profitability
Net profit has increased to a record three hundred and four million dollars ($304M) from seventy eighty million dollars ($78M). The operational transport efficiencies gained in the post-covid era continue to serve us well.

Our departure frequency and schedule management have generated higher efficiencies in fleet utilization. This has helped us to contain our overall expenses to one billion three hundred twenty-eight million dollars ($1,328M) an increase of three hundred forty-nine million dollars ($349m) or 35.6% over the previous period. These costs were driven mainly by a 59.6% increase in staff costs in response to increase customer demand.

The strong transportation demand also led to increases in other direct transport costs. As expected fuel costs climbed by 44.4% to two hundred seventeen million dollars ($217M) from one hundred fifty-one million dollars ($151M) over the previous financial year followed by a 36.1% increase in toll fees which totalled forty-seven million dollars ($47M) up from thirty-five million dollars a year ago. As fuel prices hover around new historic highs and toll passage fees continue to keep pace, it is precisely these circumstances that continue to affect motorists’ pockets that serve to boost our passenger ridership.

Other notable increases are from combined utility costs which rose 29% in this period to sixty-six million dollars ($66M) up from fifty-one million ($51M) in the financial year 2022.

Telephone costs (which include internet costs) have risen significantly and has been driven largely by customers’ shift in buying patterns towards online bookings and the more convenient digital solutions. Growing bandwidth has its own attendant costs, but we know that the impact will be diminished over time as increasingly more of our revenue will be derived from the virtual platform.

Regular electricity and water utility costs have increased as we strive to satisfy our travelling customers and our team in the comfortable surroundings of all of our locations in the face of increased global temperatures.