Stagecoach West Scotland celebrates International Womens Day with First Female Led Route in Ayrshire

Stagecoach West Scotland will for the first time, run an all-female driver bus route in Ayrshire on Tuesday 8th March to mark International Women’s Day (IWD) to promote career opportunities for females within the bus industry and women’s progress in conquering traditionally male-dominated professions.

The busy Service 3 route between Onthank and Shortlees in Kilmarnock, will be operated by female drivers for the day driving Stagecoach’s new 100%, zero emission buses.

Talking about her career with Stagecoach West Scotland, Gillian Hunter said "Working as a bus driver gave me a better work life balance. I had previously worked in the catering industry with long and hectic hours. While I was working as a bus driver with a rota system, I was able to plan and spend quality time with my family. I had the opportunity to become one of West Scotland’s first female Driving Instructors and I love training our new recruits and being able to share my knowledge and passion for the industry on to them.”

Stagecoach West Scotland has a history of empowering women, from award winning female engineering apprentices, career progression and trade up schemes.


Led by Fiona Doherty, Managing Director of Stagecoach West Scotland, she commented: “The bus industry offers a huge variety of careers from apprenticeships in engineering, bus drivers through to senior management roles. We are an industry leader in training, development, and flexibility”


Fiona continued: “I would like to thank our brilliant all-female team on Service 3 today, we hope that seeing them out in force today encourages more women to consider a career in the bus industry.”


“As well as investing in our workforce, we are investing more than £20million across Scotland with the introduction of a further 46 fully electric buses, as part of the drive to improve air quality and support the Scottish Governments environmental targets. Now is the time to get in touch and see what career opportunity there for you with us!”