Airlines object to Flybe request to offer more spaces to Jersey

FLYBE'S plans to fly more islanders to Jersey would completely destabilise the market, according to its rivals.

The airline's application to change its licence was fiercely opposed by Blue Islands and Aurigny yesterday. Both urged the panel at an air transport licence hearing to reject the application.

But Flybe said it did not want to create new services for the route, instead asking to be allowed to fill empty seats on its two current triangular rotations that stop off in Jersey on the way to Birmingham and Exeter.

'We stress this is not a request for a new service designed to operate an inter-island service only,' said Flybe general manager for the Channel Islands Ian Taylor (pictured).

Currently Flybe is allowed to allocate 10% of seats on the triangular Birmingham and Exeter routes to passengers travelling from Guernsey to Jersey.

This amounts to seven seats per trip and Flybe wants this restriction lifted. The airline said this would allow it to market flights to Jersey and secure the sustainability of the Exeter and Birmingham routes.

Aurigny managing director Malcolm Hart suggested Flybe would be able to undercut its rivals because the flights to Birmingham and Exeter would be running regardless of whether seats could be sold to Jersey. He said this meant any profit from empty seats sold to passengers going to Jersey, no matter how marginal, would be worthwhile to Flybe.

Blue Islands' commercial manager Ian Le Moigne said Flybe had offered no evidence that either airline currently operating on the route was not serving the market effectively.

The panel of six, chaired by Commerce and Employment deputy minister Marc Laine, will announce its decision at some point after 14 October.