{"id":2576,"date":"2018-09-26T07:12:10","date_gmt":"2018-09-26T07:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/pothole-epidemic-and-cold-winter-hits-aa-profits\/"},"modified":"2018-09-26T07:12:10","modified_gmt":"2018-09-26T07:12:10","slug":"pothole-epidemic-and-cold-winter-hits-aa-profits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/pothole-epidemic-and-cold-winter-hits-aa-profits\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Pothole epidemic&#8217; and cold winter hits AA profits"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div property=\"articleBody\">\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width lead\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"js-image-replace\" alt=\"AA recovery\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/5317\/production\/_100117212__99542090_mediaitem99542089.jpg\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\"\/><span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">PA<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">Bad road conditions and extreme weather in the UK have led to a drop in profits at the AA.<\/p>\n<p>The motorists&#8217; organisation saw its pre-tax profit decline 65% to \u00a328m for the first six months of 2018.<\/p>\n<p>AA boss Simon Breakwell said the severe winter caused a &#8220;pothole epidemic&#8221;, which contributed to breakdown callouts hitting a 15-year high.<\/p>\n<p>AA had previously warned that drivers and insurers were losing \u00a31m a month repairing damage caused by potholes.<\/p>\n<p>The firm&#8217;s shares fell sharply in February, after it warned that its full-year profit would fall short of analysts&#8217; expectations.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-44065655\" class=\"story-body__link\">Pothole &#8216;epidemic&#8217; costs \u00a31m a month, says AA<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-43139495\" class=\"story-body__link\">AA shares plunge 28% on profit warning<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>An unusually high number of breakdowns this year has driven up costs for AA.<\/p>\n<p>The number of breakdowns between January and July increased by 8% to 1.9m and to meet demand, the company had to call on third-party patrols.<\/p>\n<p>However AA benefited from an increase in roadside sales of products and services to help drivers deal with the cold weather.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Overall revenue at AA grew a modest 2%, to \u00a3480m.<\/p>\n<p>The company, which says it has a &#8220;traditional 50-year plus core demographic&#8221; has struggled to attract younger customers, who either do not own cars or are unwilling to pay for roadside assistance.<\/p>\n<p>In an attempt to remedy this, the AA has invested in an app and its Car Genie digital device, which is installed in members&#8217; cars and can alert the driver to potential motor problems before a breakdown occurs.<\/p>\n<p>The hope is that such digital products will appeal to younger customers.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-45649949\">Source<\/a> by <a href=\"\">[author_name]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright PA Bad road conditions and extreme weather in the UK have led to a drop in profits at the AA. The motorists&#8217; organisation saw its pre-tax profit decline 65% to \u00a328m for the first six months of 2018. AA boss Simon Breakwell said the severe winter caused a &#8220;pothole epidemic&#8221;, which contributed to &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}