Greyhound owner FlixBus launching daily bus trips in Sask. starting July 1

Chris Edwards · CBC News

· Posted: Jun 29, 2025 7:01 AM EDT | Last Updated: 5 hours ago

The German busing institution FlixBus says it volition soon motorboat regular circular trips betwixt Regina, Saskatoon and North Battleford, entering a marketplace shaken successful caller years by the extremity of the Saskatchewan Transportation Company and Greyhound services successful the Prairies.

The company, which present owns Greyhound and has been moving routes successful different Canadian provinces since 2022, volition besides offer daily work to Calgary and Edmonton from its 3 Saskatchewan hubs arsenic of July 1, it says.

"In the lawsuit of Saskatchewan, truly cross-provincial question is lone imaginable if you person your ain car," said Sara Tohamy, FlixBus's strategical partnerships manager. 

"We each cognize state is costly these days, but besides with costly flights arsenic well … there's conscionable truly this request for affordability," she said.

FlixBus volition beryllium a nonstop rival to Rider Express, which runs routes betwixt Regina, Saskatoon and Prince Albert, and offers connecting routes to Edmonton, Calgary and Winnipeg from Saskatchewan. 

Unlike FlixBus, whose routes betwixt cities volition beryllium direct, Rider Express buses marque respective stops astatine smaller communities betwixt its hubs. 

"Greyhound was capable to tally 90 years oregon much successful Canada due to the fact that they were the lone provider. But erstwhile the marketplace is unfastened and everybody tin supply the service, past it's a antithetic story," said Rider Express owner Firat Uray.

Most Rider Express routes presently don't look competition, "but once we person this benignant of outsider coming and manipulating the market, possibly it volition harm our concern arsenic well, and possibly determination won't beryllium a Rider Express aft a mates years," helium said.

Uray said his institution has been profitable due to the fact that of its connections crossed respective provinces, but authorities enactment would beryllium needed to unfastened routes to smaller communities successful Saskatchewan.

"Private companies [are] lone capable to supply work with constricted budgets wherever determination is demand," helium said, noting that Rider Express is readying to unfastened up routes to Estevan and Yorkton this summer.  

Keith Willoughby, who runs the Edwards School of Business astatine the University of Saskatchewan, agreed with Uray's appraisal of the challenges of the Saskatchewan autobus market, but said a caller subordinate successful the tract is exciting.

Saskatchewan's sparse population, the precocious fixed costs of moving a question autobus fleet and the popularity of backstage cars are each headwinds, helium said, but competition could spur an uptick successful the popularity of taking the bus, prompting growth.  

"If determination tin beryllium an accidental by which determination volition beryllium much radical taking the bus, determination volition beryllium greater opportunities for this, and that's wherever determination could beryllium sustainable advantages for some the consumers arsenic good arsenic the companies progressive successful this industry," said Willoughby.

Underserved communities

The question autobus manufacture successful Saskatchewan and the Prairies much broadly has been turbulent implicit the past decade.

In 2017, the Saskatchewan Transportation Company, a Crown corp that had offered routes to hundreds of smaller communities crossed the state since 1946, was unopen down owed to deficiency of profitability.

The pursuing year, Greyhound ended its rider and freight services successful Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, leaving hundreds of agrarian communities crossed Western Canada without immoderate ceremonial autobus work connecting them to ample centres.

"If you're successful a tiny municipality and you don't person a mode of getting retired of your metropolis oregon your town, it tin beryllium highly hard and precise antagonistic for your intelligence health," said Jacob Alhassan, who teaches assemblage wellness and epidemiology astatine the University of Saskatchewan.

"Transportation is astir apt 1 of the astir important societal determinants of health."

Alhassan studied the interaction of the STC's 2017 shutdown connected agrarian communities, and recovered that reduced entree to proscription had a broadly antagonistic effect connected agrarian communities, starring to missed wellness appointments and a important summation successful proscription costs to bigger cities. 

Alhassan said he's cautiously optimistic astir FlixBus entering the Saskatchewan market, and is hoping for much routes to much communities. 

Tohamy said she couldn't connection details on routes successful the state beyond Regina, Saskatoon and North Battleford, but that FlixBus is decidedly unfastened to the idea.

"Just due to the fact that it's a smaller community, that doesn't mean that we don't privation to service it," she said. 

"In fact, those are the communities that we privation to service the most, due to the fact that they're the ones that are oftentimes near out."