Coach company’s April Fool provokes genuine interest among passengers

As part of the gag, the company issued a statement in which Chris Hardy, Managing Director at National Express, endorsed a fake ‘#NXSleep’ trial.

“This is a very exciting development for us,” he said. “34 per cent of our customers travel for over three hours at a time, with many of them opting to travel in the evening and late at night. We want them to be able to relax and unwind during their travel and believe the NXSleep suite is the perfect solution to offer the next level in comfort.

However by Monday afternoon, the company let the cat out of the proverbial coach.

“You guessed it, Happy #AprilFoolsDay!” it trumpeted on Twitter.

“#NXSleep isn’t real, but we really can take you where you need to be in comfort thanks to our new Premium Seating option.”

It proceeded to offer five pairs of coach tickets to try the new seating, if they said where they wanted to go.

However at least four customers who immediately saw through the fake news told the company they would actually support beds on a coach.

“Good April’s fools but this would actually be amazing,” one said.

“Haha if only this was real that would be sick,” said another.

Another pledged to put his money where his mouth is.

“I know this tweet is date related.....but I would actually pay for this for an upcoming Birmingham-Edinburgh trip.....name your price!” he said.

A fourth also wistfully approved the idea.

“All fools aside, always jealous of countries that do have sleeper coaches,” he added.