Aurigny's 'get you there if we can' policy hurts its delay stats

AURIGNY could cut its average disruption time considerably if it cancelled its flights at the first sign of bad weather, it has said in response to recently published statistics.

Published 10 Aug 2018, 11:05am

Aurigny was ranked 39th out of 44 UK airlines for delays in 2017, but said its policy of trying to get passengers to their destination rather than cancelling flights at the earliest opportunity had made those figures look bad. (Picture by Adrian Miller, 22229197) / Guernsey Press

According to Press Association analysis of Civil Aviation Authority data, Aurigny had the sixth worst average delays for flights operated by airlines with at least 2,000 scheduled departures from UK airports in 2017.

It ranked 39th out of 44 with an average delay of 20.1 minutes.

But an Aurigny spokesman defended its performance.

‘While these figures may not appear favourable, they are based on 2017 when our most significant delays were caused by severe weather disruption and diversions,’ he said.

‘If, like many other airlines, we cancelled our flights at the first sight of bad weather, we would cut our “average disruption time” considerably. However, as a local community airline, we pride ourselves on doing everything we can to get our customers where they need to be.

‘Poor visibility continues to be one of the biggest challenges we face and 2017 was particularly challenging, with more than 60 days of disruption in Guernsey, including knock-on delays.

‘Conscious of this, we are always keeping a close eye on new technology being developed, and aircraft manufacturer ATR has approached us with an exciting opportunity to be the launch partner for its fog-busting ClearVision system, available on new ATR-72 600 aircraft.

‘This technology would make a dramatic difference to our ability to land in poor visibility and change things for the better for Guernsey and our customers.

‘To this end, we have signed a non-binding letter of intent for new ATR aircraft and we plan to take our business case to the States later this autumn.’

Scandinavian Airlines had the lowest average delay time of 7.4 minutes while Wizz Air had the worst at 22.9 minutes.

Flybe was ranked 20th with an average of 14.1 minutes, while Blue Islands was 24th with an average of 15.6 minutes.