Flybe inter-island bid rejected

FLYBE has labelled as 'perverse' a decision to refuse its application to loosen restrictions on its inter-island licence.

Commerce and Employment has rejected its bid to fill empty seats on its two triangular routes that stop in Jersey on the way to Birmingham or Exeter.

Flybe said that the decision highlighted its belief that the department would not approve any move that represented competition for States-owned Aurigny. Both Aurigny and Blue Islands opposed the application.

Flybe chief commercial officer Mike Rutter (pictured) said it would be passengers who would suffer.

'In making this decision, the board has decided to continue the policy of artificially restricting seat availability between Guernsey and Jersey. We have, in effect, been ordered to leave some 20,000 seats empty,' he said.

'Although it came as no surprise to Flybe, it doesn't make it any easier to swallow and it's simply another in a long line of decisions that safeguards the narrow commercial interests of Guernsey's States-owned and States-subsidised airline.

'Put plainly, it misses an opportunity to guarantee existing lifeline routes which, frankly, are more important than propping up the Aurigny monopoly. The losers here are not Flybe, but Guernsey consumers who will pay over the odds for flights at a time when every traveller is counting their pennies.'