National Bus Company era

Railair services originated as a partnership between the nationalised bus operator, the National Bus Company, and the nationalised rail operator, British Rail, under the Railair Link brand name.

In Luton National Bus Company subsidiary Luton & District, operated a Railair Link branded shuttle bus between Luton railway station and Luton Airport, as the Luton Flyer. Luton Airport Parkway railway station has since been built closer to the airport.

From 1967, Thames Valley Traction,^[3] (later Alder Valley^[4]), operated a Railair Link coach between Heathrow and Reading station in a yellow striped livery as route X25,^[5] and later in National Bus Company coach livery.^[3] A Railair Link service was also operated by coach operator Rickards from Heathrow to Woking.^[6]

Post deregulation

After bus deregulation, the existing Reading and Woking to Heathrow Railair services passed to private companies.

Privatised Alder Valley, as the Bee Line bus company, owned by Q-Drive, operated the Heathrow to Reading Railair service in bottle green liveried coaches as the Rail Air service with marketing for the onward rail links to South Wales and the West of England. When Beeline passed to FirstGroup, the Railair service was operated ultimately by First Berkshire, which in 2003 relaunched the service with Irizar Century bodied Scania K114IB coaches.^[7] The serviced operates as the FirstGroup branded service Rail Air.com.^[8]

The Woking to Heathrow service was operated by Speedlink Airport Services in a blue livery. Speedlink was later sold to National Express, which operated it in a light blue version of their 2003 livery,^[9][10] in conjunction with Stagecoach's South West Trains subsidiary,^[11] also with branding promoting rail connections to the South West.

In 2006^[12] Virgin Trains West Coast, which is 49% owned by Stagecoach, introduced Virgin Trains liveried coaches for Railair links to Virgin trains services from Luton and Heathrow airports, as the Virgin Trains ExpressCoach services, operated by Stagecoach East. From 1 June 2008, the Virgin service to Heathrow was withdrawn, with passengers directed to Green Line route 724 as a replacement.^[13][14]