Guernsey's airline Aurigny delays and cancels more flights

One day after being told by the States, which entirely owns Aurigny, that its service was unacceptable, a tech issue with its latest ATR causes more problems for passengers.

On Wednesday (21 August), Deputy Peter Roffey, who represents the States as the owner of the airline, met with Aurigny chairman Kevin George and CEO Nico Bezuidenhout, to discuss the delays and cancellations over recent weeks.

In a statement issued after those talks, the deputy said:

“We have made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that the level of disruption that has occurred during the airline’s ongoing fleet transition has been unacceptable. It has exposed a lack of resilience, and that has impacted a lot of islanders and local businesses."

At that meeting, Aurigny said that it expects to take delivery of a wet lease aircraft in the week beginning August Bank Holiday Monday (26 August).

A wet lease, or ACMI, is where the lessor provides the aircraft, the crew to fly it and is responsible for its maintenance and insurance.

Flights on Tuesday and Wednesday ran to time, but yesterday (22 August) there was further disruption.

The Liverpool flight was cancelled and the early evening Gatwick return flight was showing a four hour delay, before being cancelled. The last Gatwick to Guernsey flight landed at 11.22pm, close to the airport's final closure time.

Last weekend, an Aurigny flight from Exeter was turned back just seconds from landing. Wednesday's top-level talks also addressed this incident, described by deputy Roffey as 'absurd', to seek assurances from airline and airport bosses that it would never happen again.

The aircraft that caused the latest disruption was G-PEMB, the ATR that Aurigny took delivery of in July from a US leasing company. It had to be flown to Dinard for maintenance, but is now back in service.

Sudeep Ghai is the Chief Commercial Officer at Aurigny, and has again apologised to customers:

“Due to one of our aircraft requiring unexpected off-island maintenance, we have had to cancel today’s (22 August) Liverpool flights, and several other routes are facing delays.

We appreciate the patience and understanding of our customers affected by the disruption. Customers on cancelled flights have been rebooked onto the next available services."

He underlined the commitment to providing the extra resilience demanded by the States at the meeting on Wednesday:

“We are currently in the process of securing additional wet-leased capacity, which will be in service early next week.”

Flights today are running to time, aside from the Alderney services, which are delayed due to weather issues in Alderney.

Read more: Guernsey's airline confident in its staff, management and operation