I can agree about the Scania Omnidekka, in particular the early ones which were built in 2003/4. I went on one of these a few years ago, they have two like this I believe, and a few other Omnidekkas which were ex Scania Demos. They're finished to a very high standard, with a really tasteful blue colour scheme inside with the rest of the panels a silver colour and yellow poles. You can also see the seats with the headrests and seatbelts! And these are used on a regular service route! http://www.flickr.com/pho.../sizes/o/in/photostream/ I believe they have a 2010 model as well which they got built by special order.

I think you're right about the AV being the best of the low floor deckers in 2000. There wasn't exactly much decent competition though if you ask me, you had the President body as well. If I remember correctly the Low floor East Lancs bodies (Such as the Bus Eireann DD one) came out after 2000 and Scania came into the low floor decker market pretty late with the Omnidekka which was really a East Lancs body with Scania styling, and then the Omnicity Double Deck more recently, which is a piece of crap. The optare deckers such as the Excel in 2000 were also in my opinion, crap.

I was on the Airlink buses in Edinburgh and that spec is out of this world. It is fantastic. Also had the pleasure to sample the new vehicles on the Bristol Airport shuttle which are of a very high spec as well, although these are single decker Eclipse 2's. Crazy about the AV and AX being up there with Wrightbus, they know how to make a good Bus but it just screams of Dublin Bus trying to tell them actually they did not! Apologies about the remark about the EV type and moving to it - duff information it must have been!