Aurigny Air Services (GR, Guernsey) has exited an operational audit with flying colours as consultants concluded the carrier was not to blame for the disruption of its services during a fleet transition from February to August this year, a report compiled at the request of Guernsey's States' Trading Supervisory Board (STSB) reveals.
The report, conducted by PA Consulting Group, said that “no evidence of negligence or gross misjudgement by management” was found. The consultants put the issues down to Aurigny being “let down by suppliers”, three unrelated maintenance events, and pilot retention. They went on to emphasise that some issues such as parts procurement and pilot retention could remain issues in 2025 but stressed this was not unique to Aurigny.
Furthermore, the report praised Aurigny’s management for deciding to exit Embraer operations and noted “the situation might have been worse” had the E195 stayed in the fleet.
In August, the STSB reprimanded Aurigny for what it called its "unacceptable level of service".
Schedule seen as resilient
Besides examining issues in 2024, the review analysed the carrier’s future operating model and provided a positive overview while highlighting pilot retention concerns.
“The schedule that has been put forward would appear to have more resilience for winter 24-25 and especially for the summer season of 2025,” the review said and added that there are spare aircraft on most days.
“This effectively means that while the aircraft should be able to fly eight sectors in a day, one aircraft will reduce to six sectors, leaving a PM gap that allows for recovery. This second line of defence in the schedule, along with the spare, creates a level of redundancy greater than what one would normally see in an airline of this size,” it added.
Commenting on the review in an exclusive interview with ch-aviation in October, Aurigny CEO Nico Bezuidenhout said he expected it to verify and validate the company’s schedule from a forward standpoint.
The review also goes on to say that other risks are related to ATR - Avions de Transport Régional supply chain issues. “We have encouraged the management to invest in securing key critical spare parts as a preventative measure (such as landing gear) if and when a rare opportunity arises to do so,” it said.
Aurigny currently operates an in-house fleet of four ATR72-600s and two Do228-212(NG)s, the ch-aviation fleets module shows. It also wet-leases in a single ATR72-500(QC) from Swiftair (WT, Madrid Barajas).
