ALSA (bus company)

ALSA (Automóviles Luarca, S.A.) is a Spanish subsidiary of the UK company National Express, which operates bus and coach services in Spain and other countries across Europe, including Andorra, Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and Ukraine. It also has operations in Morocco.

ALSA also had operations in China and Chile, but these were retained by the previous owners of the company and are not owned by National Express.

When ALSA was incorporated in 1923, it was merely a regional operator based in Luarca and Oviedo, in the Spanish northern region of Asturias.

In the 1920s and 1930s the Alsa flagship service was the 170 km Oviedo-Luarca-Ribadeo route, northwest from Oviedo, with thirteen fixed and thirty occasional stops, a 10-hour journey. This was later extended to Coruña.

In the 1940s and 1950s ALSA extended its network through central and western Asturias. In 1962 the company started a route from Oviedo to Madrid, and in 1964 started its first international service from Oviedo to Paris and Brussels. The company expanded continually to become the leading Spanish road passenger transporter in the 1980s, and by 2000 covered most of Spain and Western Europe.

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