The Guernsey Chamber of Commerce is advocating a merger between Aurigny Air Services (GR, Guernsey) and Blue Islands (SI, Jersey) to create a more "resilient" regional airline, the chamber's director James Ede-Golightly said in a statement following a period of delays and cancellations at Aurigny.
The comments come as the States' Trading Supervisory Board (STSB), a committee of the States of Guernsey government, launched a review into Aurigny’s operations and performance in August following months of disruptions due to fleet issues.
As ch-aviation reported earlier, Aurigny added one more ATR72-600 to its active fleet in August only to have to pull it out of service within a week over maintenance problems. It then wet-leased an ATR72-500 from Swiftair (WT, Madrid Barajas).
Aurigny’s in-house fleet consists of four ATR72-600s (three company-owned and one under an operating lease from Jetstream Aviation Capital), and two company-owned Do228-212(NG)s, ch-aviation fleets shows.
Ede-Golightly said that “something needs to change, the status quo isn’t supporting our community and businesses as needed” and added that integrating the carrier with Blue Islands, its codeshare partner, would create a regional airline “with resilience and scale centred on the Channel Islands.”
“This creates scale opportunity for the merged airline without detracting from the ability to deliver critical air connectivity for the Bailiwicks of Guernsey and Jersey to the extent required,” he said.
More proposals for Guernsey
Furthermore, the Chamber of Commerce is advocating a new Air Policy Framework, saying the current one was designed only to fit Covid-era purposes. It also wants the government in Guernsey, a self-governing British Crown dependency, to pool Channel Island Control Zone revenues across the major Channel Islands instead of sending all revenues from international traffic to Ports of Jersey.
Additionally, the chamber called on using remote Air Traffic Control, merging airport fire services and regular fire services, and upgrading Guernsey Airport with an engineered materials arrestor system (EMAS) to address runway length and allow for larger aircraft to operate out of the airport.
Aurigny and Blue Islands are the only two airlines that operate out of Guernsey, ch-aviation schedules shows, Aurigny to 22 destinations in six countries, Blue Islands to 10 destinations in five countries.
