Govt 'shares public's concerns' over Blue Islands flight disruption

Jersey's government says it is monitoring ongoing delays and cancellations of Blue Islands flights and will 'consider further action where necessary'.

It follows mounting complaints from passengers about disruption and poor communication and customer service from the airline.

Blue Islands operates seventeen Jersey routes, including to Paris and Majorca this summer, as well as the important Southampton air link used by hospital patients needing treatment in the UK.

There has been growing criticism recently relating to the reliability of services, including from people with medical appointments.

The airline apologised, and said only a 'small number' of Southampton services had been impacted so far this year.

However, there have been reliability issues across its network, prompting Blue Islands last week to axe 28 flights across four routes from its summer schedule because of a lack of aircraft.  It said its 'fleet challenges' are not unique to Blue Islands, but are part of a global supply problem sourcing leased replacements and plane parts.

States of Guernsey owned airline Aurigny encountered similar issues with its ATR fleet last summer, forcing it to cut some services and make several public apologies to its customers.

Blue Islands problems have continued this week, with a 'miracle' emergency landing of a Jersey bound flight at Birmingham airport on Sunday (25 May), and more than a third of its flights on Wednesday ( 28 May) cancelled.

Tonight's Bristol arrival, due in to Jersey before 9pm, has an estimated arrival time of 23.40.

In a statement to Channel 103, the government says it 'shares the public's concerns about recent disruption to flights and has relayed these directly to Blue Islands'.

“Delayed and cancelled flights can cause a great deal of stress, particularly for people travelling for hospital appointments and other important engagements.

"We know that Blue Islands takes their responsibilities seriously and we expect them to achieve more effective operations as soon as possible."

The government added that it 'remains in constant contact with the airline regarding routine patient travel services'.

"We will continue to monitor the situation and consider further potential action where necessary,” it said.

As of September 2024, Blue Islands had repaid Jersey's government £1.5m of a £8.5m loan it received in July 2020 during the Covid pandemic.

Announcing the recent schedule changes, Blue Islands cited recent CAA flight reliability data.

"In the latest independent figures published by the UK Civil Aviation Authority last week, Blue Islands operated 531 of its scheduled 540 flights in March (98.5%) carrying over 22,000 passengers and with 80% arriving on time.  Whilst 1.5%* of flights (9) were cancelled, the UK, Jersey and IOM average was 1.8%* of flights that were cancelled which provides some wider context."

Channel 103 has approached Blue Islands for comment.

As Blue Islands is a Channel Islands airline, passengers are not entitled to compensation for cancellations - something the Jersey Consumer Council would like to see change.  It is running a survey to collect people's experiences.